What we do

We are a group of researchers investigating plant-animal interactions in tundra environments. Our goal is to form collaborative partnerships and design standardized protocols for measuring herbivory across alpine and Arctic ecosystems.

Ongoing changes in the composition of plant and herbivore communities are likely to have a large impact on the dynamics of Arctic and alpine ecosystems and their ability to respond to changes. Beyond its ecological relevance, herbivory is an important topic for many northern communities, as the main Arctic herbivores are herded (e.g. reindeer), tended as livestock (e.g. sheep) or hunted (e.g. caribou, geese and ptarmigan). The knowledge gained and methods developed in the Herbivory Network will ultimately benefit land use management and conservation around the Arctic.

New publications about herbivory

Read here some recent publications related to herbivory.

Keeping carbon in the ground: long-term evidence that livestock grazing sustains soil carbon stocks in Icelandic grassland and heathland

In subarctic grasslands and heathlands, traditional livestock grazing is the dominating land use since centuries. Many of these rangelands have ...

Bedding down in the storm: how muskoxen respond to high-Arctic winds

Extreme weather events pose significant energetic challenges to large herbivores, and the Arctic is warming faster than almost anywhere else ...

Herbivore decline switches a high Arctic plant community from top-down to bottom-up control

This study explores how a tundra plant community at Zackenberg in NE Greenland is influenced by both grazing animals and ...

Large mammalian herbivores can influence arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in the Arctic

Mycorrhizal fungi are an integral component of carbon and nutrient dynamics in soils and may be especially important in Arctic ...

You can also find older publications here.

Contact Us

If you are interested in herbivory in Arctic or alpine regions and you want to join our group, we would love to hear from you!

Please email us at: herbivory.network@gmail.com

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