Marc Macias-Fauria

Jan 4, 2025 | alaskabeacon.com | Marc Macias-Fauria

Across much of the world, planting more trees means more carbon is stored, and global warming is reduced. That’s the thinking behind recent proposals to plant more trees in Alaska, Greenland and Iceland. But we recently published a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience in which we argue that tree planting is no climate solution at northern high latitudes. In fact, it does more harm than good.

Jun 22, 2023 | sciencemag.org | Hu Zeng |Graham Budd |Elina Kaarlejärvi |Marc Macias-Fauria

Editor’s summaryArctic tundra is experiencing rapid climate change, including warming temperatures and loss of sea ice. Plants and herbivores are both affected by these abiotic changes. Post et al. examined the effects of climate change and herbivory on the diversity of tundra plants, fungi, and lichens using a 15-year warming and herbivore exclusion experiment. They found that diversity decreased over time across all treatments, which was mainly explained by losses of sea ice with ambient warming.