In a recent paper published in Journal of Ecology, Maja Sundqvist, Jon Moen, Robert Björk, Tage Vowles, Minna-Maarit Kytöviita, Malcolm Parsons and Johan Olofsson studied the long-term effects of reindeer on vegetation in experimental sites across the Scandinavian mountains. They made use of a large network of study plots where reindeer have been excluded from vegetation for at least 15 years, spanning a latitudinal gradient including sites in Sweden, Finland and Norway.
The paper shows that reindeer reduced vegetation greenness, lichen and deciduous shrub abundances while increased soil mineral N, and the relative reductions in vegetation greenness in response to reindeer were not related to climate and soil properties. It also highlights the role of reindeer density for vegetation patterns at regional scales in the Arctic: reindeer density effects on plant species richness were related to productivity and reindeer density was positively related to the relative reduction in leaf area index and associated reductions of deciduous shrubs across the experimental sites.
Reference: Sundqvist, M.K., Moen, J., Björk, R.G., Vowles, T., Kytöviita, M.M., Parsons, M.A., Olofsson, J. (2019) Experimental evidence of the long‐term effects of reindeer on Arctic vegetation greenness and species richness at a larger landscape scale. Journal of Ecology
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13201
Picture: One of the experimental exclosures used in this study, in Ritsem, Sweden (photo: Maja Sundqvist, SLU, 2019)