Curr. Biol. 17, 449–450 (2007)

Credit: © Toke Høye

In northern Greenland, just 1,700 kilometres from the North Pole, flowers are blooming, insects are emerging and migratory shorebirds are laying eggs an average of two weeks earlier than they were just a decade ago. Some plants, such as Moss Campion, now bloom a full month earlier. These and other Arctic species are responding quickly to their warming environment, according to new research.

Toke Høye of the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and colleagues examined the effect of earlier springtime on common local plants and animals at Zackenberg, Greenland, from 1996 to 2005 in the first study to document these effects in the High Arctic. Studies at temperate latitudes have recorded the advancing dates of periodic biological cycles in relation to increased temperature, but in Greenland, these events relate directly to the onset of snowmelt, the researchers found.

Høye and co-workers consider the changes to be dramatic, given the short Arctic summer and the number of organisms observed. As the Arctic continues to warm, interactions between species could be weakened or disrupted, he says, because their breeding cycles may respond to climate change at different rates.