Changes in Arctic plant communities: the roles of climate and geodiversity

With Oliver Baines, University of Nottingham.

All seminars online. Please contact sue.davis@nottingham.ac.uk for the link. Subject to change.

Part of the Geosciences Seminar Series.

Strong relationships between geodiversity – the diversity of the materials and processes at the Earth’s surface and subsurface – and biodiversity, are increasingly being uncovered within the field of ecology. Areas of greater geodiversity are thought to foster plant diversity by increasing available niche space and promoting speciation. Key questions remain however concerning the scales at which geodiversity—biodiversity relationships hold true, and regarding the lack of empirical evidence for the importance of geodiversity through time. The Arctic exhibits variation in both geodiversity and biodiversity across fine-scales and is warming much faster than other parts of the world, thus presenting a useful environment with which to answer such questions.

In this talk, I will present results from studies using data gathered from across scales in the Arctic, with a view to nuancing our understanding of geodiversity—biodiversity relationships. Specifically, I will demonstrate the importance of geodiversity in influencing patterns of plant productivity change, highlight new methods for the derivation of geodiversity, and quantify fine-scale patterns of geodiversity, biodiversity, and discuss how they might influence one-another.