Following up earlier HN work on the patterns and drivers of herbivore diversity across the Arctic (Barrio et al. 2016, Speed et al. 2019), James Speed and MSc student Jesus Adrian Chimal Ballesteros assessed phylogenetic and functional diversity of both Arctic and boreal herbivore species. Their work examined the presence of clusters of herbivore communities in functional and phylogenetic space, and tested whether these relate to biome transitions or biogeographic transitions. This work helps understand the likely implications of northward movement of herbivore species from the boreal to Arctic biomes.
Adrian successfully defended his MSc thesis in 2019, and the full text is available here. The results of this work were published in Global Change Biology:
SPEED, J.D., CHIMAL-BALLESTEROS, J.A., MARTIN, M.D., BARRIO, I.C., VUORINEN, K.E., SOININEN, E.M. (2021) Will borealization of Arctic tundra herbivore communities be driven by climate warming or vegetation change?. Global Change Biology, 27(24):6568-6577 link to publisher