Highly read on esajournals.org in September

The effects of climate change on tundra in the high Arctic are chronicled in this study by James Hudson and Greg Henry of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Data collected from study plots over a 13-year period and survey data covering 27 years on the tundra of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, show an ecosystem 'in transition'. Temperatures have risen and the growing season has lengthened. The biomass of mosses has increased by 74% and that of evergreen shrubs by 60%. The total biomass of the system has increased significantly, and vegetation has grown taller. But because there was plenty of open ground at the site into which plants could expand, these changes did not result in decreases in any group. The research indicates that climate change has already begun to increase plant productivity in the high Arctic.

Ecology 90, 2657–2663 (2009)