Springtime Surprises: How Climate Change Affects Arthropods, Birds, and Plants in Northeast Greenland

In recent years, anemones, gnats, and crickets have experienced ups and downs like on a roller coaster due to the changing climate. While spring may be earlier and milder on average, there are still storms and snow to contend with. This variability in weather presents a challenge for both plants and animals.

Organisms in the North and Arctic regions face particularly tough selection situations due to the rapid warming of land areas. Spring fluctuations play a crucial role in determining the activity of organisms, as reported by an international group of researchers in the science magazine, Current Biology.

Researchers have been monitoring the spring activity of plants, arthropods, and birds for the past 25 years in Northeast Greenland. The data from 1996 to 2020 shows that while there has been an overall warming trend, the variability in spring warmth and snowfall has been significant. The advancement of flowering, insect awakening, and egg-laying varies greatly among the species studied, including Lapland’s anemones, tundra willows, ticks, gorse hawks, barn owls, and wagtails.

The findings of the research may come as a surprise as trends from the first ten years of monitoring were different from those in following years. Researchers anticipated that as time passed, organisms would shift their attention due to changing spring dynamics. Published in March 2024 in Science Nature Magazine this study sheds light on how organisms adapt to a changing climate.

In summary, these findings show that even though there is an overall warming trend across northeast Greenland’s ecosystems