Northern rangelands are changing fast, and these changes can have profound consequences to species coexistence and management.
In their recent paper, Noémie Boulanger-Lapointe and collaborators compiled occurrence data for the main vertebrate herbivore species present in the highlands of Iceland (sheep, reindeer, pink-footed goose and rock ptarmigan). They used an ensemble model workflow to analyse their distribution and its drivers and produced the first high-resolution national open-source and open-access models for Iceland.
The analyses show that vegetation productivity and soil type were the main drivers of herbivore species diversity across Iceland. The overlapping distributions of sheep and geese point out the potential for wildlife-livestock conflicts and for continued ecosystem degradation at higher elevations even under declining livestock abundance.
Compiling data on herbivore occurrence across Iceland was not a trivial task. Data sources ranged from GPS collar data to citizen science observations and span a long period of time (1861-2021). The data compilation provides the most extensive database on herbivore distribution in Iceland. Together with the open-access modelling workflow, such dataset provides a framework for transparent and repeatable science-based management decisions.
You can read the full paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722042371
Reference: Boulanger-Lapointe, N., Ágústsdóttir, K., Barrio, I.C., Defourneaux, M., Finnsdóttir, R., Jónsdóttir, I.S., Marteinsdóttir, B., Mitchell, C., Möller, M., Nielsen, Ó.K. and Sigfússon, A.Þ., 2022. Herbivore species coexistence in changing rangeland ecosystems: First high resolution national open-source and open-access ensemble models for Iceland. Science of The Total Environment, p.157140.
This paper was part of Noémie’s postdoc project funded by the University of Iceland and is a contribution to the TUNDRAsalad project
Photograph: Sheep and pink-footed geese in Iceland (photo: Maite Gartzia)