Oikos Denmark 2023

The Arctic aroma – volatile emissions from the warming Arctic

Arctic areas are experiencing amplified climate warming that proceeds twice as fast as the global temperature increase. The rising temperature is already causing evident alterations, e.g. changes in the vegetation cover as well as thawing of permafrost. Climate warming and the concomitant biotic and abiotic changes are likely to have strong direct and indirect effects on the production and emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from arctic ecosystems.

We have used long-term field manipulation experiments to assess effects of climate change on tundra VOC emissions. In these experiments, we have observed emission increases by a factor of 2-5 under experimental warming, and this strong temperature response has also been confirmed by ecosystem-scale data. Climate change is also increasing the abundance of insect herbivores. As insect herbivores can also induce production and release of VOCs, we have assessed the importance of herbivore-induced plant volatiles and their interactions with warming in the Sub-Arctic tundra and mountain birch forests. Our work shows that during the active insect-feeding periods, the effect of herbivory on VOC emission rates and emission compositions can override those of climatic warming. In this talk, I present our recent findings on experimental and modeling work, showing how VOC emissions in high latitude ecosystems may be directly affected by climate change and insect herbivory and indirectly affected by vegetation changes.

The cognitive ecology of porpoises