Changing Arctic Ecosystems

Research to Understand and Project Changes in Marine and Terrestrial Ecosystems of the Arctic

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The Arctic is rapidly changing. Ecosystems and wildlife communities are not static; they change and evolve over time due to numerous intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The Arctic is now experiencing a period of more rapid change for which our current understanding of potential ecosystem and wildlife response is limited. Changes to the physical environment from warming temperatures include diminishing sea ice, increased coastal erosion, deteriorating permafrost, and changed water regimes. These changes influence biological communities and the ways in which human communities interact with them. The new USGS initiative “Changing Arctic Ecosystems” (CAE) strives to 1) “get ahead” of and inform about the potential future suite of wildlife changes that might result in Endangered Species Act actions or other critical resource decisions, and 2) provide unique insights into the “plumbing” of ecosystems under stress. We examine how and why changes in the ice-dominated ecosystems of the Arctic are affecting wildlife and their supporting ecosystems and will provide a better foundation for understanding the degree to and manner in which wildlife species respond and adapt to rapid environmental change. This is not just an “Arctic” issue since the Arctic is the production zone for continental and international populations of hundreds of species. To coin a variation on a popular phrase, “What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,” but will be felt on a much broader scale.

The Changing Arctic Ecosystems initiative includes three major research themes (described on the Theme pages) that span the Arctic ice-dominated ecosystems and are structured to identify and understand the linkages between physical processes, ecosystems and wildlife populations. USGS is applying knowledge-based modeling structures such as Bayesian Networks to integrate the work.