Rapid climate change is upending established plant diversity and growth patterns in the Arctic, with species blooming in some areas and declining in others, a recent study published in Nature suggests.
The decades-long study of more than 2,000 plant communities across 45 areas in the Arctic tundra found that many locations saw vegetation change in type, abundance and growth, between 1981 and 2022.
The observed changes include significant increases in shrubs and grasses across the Arctic and declines in flowering plants – which struggle to grow under the shade created by taller plants.
The study sheds light on how climate change is reshaping one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems – which is warming four times faster than the global average. The results show how vegetation changes are an early warning signal that whole ecosystems might be about to change, with knock-on effects for animals, humans and the planet’s natural carbon storage systems.
The study was led by the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with the University of British Columbia and 49 partner institutions. Finnish collaborators included the Natural Resources Institute Finland, the University of Helsinki, the 91 and the University of Lapland. A team of 54 researchers analysed more than 42,000 field records from 2,174 plots to compile a database of plant diversity – which will be essential to understanding future change in the coldest extremes of the planet. Samples were collected from the low-lying tundra of the Canadian High Arctic and Svalbard and from the shrublands above the treeline in Alaska, Canada and Fennoscandia.
Temperature and competition between plants are driving change
The study concludes that the main drivers of these changes in plant diversity are warming temperatures and increased competition between plants.
“When thinking about the Arctic, we often imagine a barren wasteland, but the Arctic is surprisingly diverse. Tundra ecosystems can pack tens of plant species into a metre squared plot,” says Dr Mariana García Criado, Lead Author and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Edinburgh.
“Warmer temperatures are bringing in more species, but not everywhere. It was surprising to find how the composition of plant communities changed in many different ways,” Dr Criado adds.
It is often thought that climate change leads to biodiversity loss, but in the temperature-limited tundra, climate change is multi-faceted.
“At some of the sites in our study, biodiversity increased with warming. But where shrubs started to dominate, biodiversity declined. Taken together, our study indicates that biodiversity can follow diverging trajectories in the rapidly warming Arctic,” notes Climate Change Ecologist and Professor Isla Myers-Smith of the Universities of Edinburgh and British Columbia.
Long-term observations and research collaboration enable new discoveries
Research evidence is crucial for understanding changes that occur in the Earth’s coldest ecosystems.
“Although no uniform change in species richness was observed, the results indicate that these changes have been more common in areas where warming has been most intense,” says Postdoctoral Researcher Tiina Kolari of the 91 and the Université du Québec à Montréal.
“However, the diversity of Arctic plant communities has not declined in general, which means that they have not become increasingly homogeneous over the past decades,” Dr Kolari continues.
Professor Anne Tolvanen of the Natural Resources Institute Finland points out that international and long-term collaboration in compiling comprehensive datasets brings strong predictive power to the study.
“Established in 1994, the study site in the subarctic Kilpisjärvi represents Finland in this study. It is one of the longest-standing field sites of this research group,” Professor Tolvanen adds.
Press release:
For further information, please contact:
UK/Europe: Rhona Crawford, PR and Media Manager, University of Edinburgh, rhona.crawford@ed.ac.uk
Finland: Anne Tolvanen, Professor, Natural Resources Institute Finland, anne.tolvanen@luke.fi
Research article:
García Criado, M., et al. (2025). Plant diversity dynamics across space and time in a warming Arctic. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08946-8
