Search results for "Collared lemming"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
Long-term monitoring reveals topographical features and vegetation explain winter habitat use of an Arctic rodent
2021
AbstractCollapsing lemming cycles have been observed across the Arctic, presumably due to global warming creating less favorable winter conditions. The quality of wintering habitats, such as depth of snow cover, plays a key role in sustaining population dynamics of arctic lemmings. However, few studies so far investigated habitat use during the arctic winter. Here, we used a unique long-term time series to test whether lemmings are associated with topographical and vegetational habitat features for their winter refugi. We examined yearly numbers and distribution of 22,769 winter nests of the collared lemming Dicrostonyx groenlandicus from an ongoing long-term research on Traill Island, Nort…
Response of an arctic predator guild to collapsing lemming cycles
2012
6 pages; International audience; Alpine and arctic lemming populations appear to be highly sensitive to climate change, and when faced with warmer and shorter winters, their well-known high-amplitude population cycles may collapse. Being keystone species in tundra ecosystems, changed lemming dynamics may convey significant knock-on effects on trophically linked species. Here, we analyse long-term (1988-2010), community-wide monitoring data from two sites in high-arctic Greenland and document how a collapse in collared lemming cyclicity affects the population dynamics of the predator guild. Dramatic changes were observed in two highly specialized lemming predators: snowy owl and stoat. Follo…