European arctic and high-alpine ecosystems remained comparatively natural so far but are currently disproportionally affected by accelerating climate warming. Terrestrial plant species are therefore shifting their ranges to higher latitudes and elevations to track the conditions they are adapted to. However, it remains unknown whether the velocity of these species-specific range shifts is increasing accordingly or whether they are increasingly lagging behind climatic trends. This might ultimately result in species extirpations if the disequilibrium between species distributions and climatic conditions becomes too large. In addition, these ecosystems are currently not only affected by warming but also by several other aspects of environmental change such as snow cover changes and atmospheric nitrogen depositions. Yet, little is known about the individual contributions and the intervening effects of these drivers on species-specific range shifts of arctic and alpine plant species.

Here we propose to integrate the high Arctic into a Europe-wide endeavour to address these knowledge gaps. The consortium of this project is currently creating a new database comprising over 4,000 re-surveyed plots, transects and summits in arctic and alpine ecosystems across the continent. For quantifying non-linear responses of plant species over time and reliable model parametrization, sites with several observations over time with first records before the onset of major environmental changes that span across elevational gradients and cover the entire environmental niche of species are indispensable. However, such sites are currently lacking in the high Arctic, despite its importance as the environmental limit of several species and their pronounced current changes.

In this project, we will re-survey 124 plots and six transects on the high-Arctic archipelago of Svalbard that were first recorded during the years 1924-1960 and re-surveyed in 2009. With these data, we will fill the high-Arctic gap and enable the analysis of Europe-wide re-distributions of arctic and alpine plant species during the Anthropocene. In case of successful evaluation, the grant will mainly be used to charter a sailing boat for climate-friendly field site access, transport to Svalbard and safety equipment.