%ALeffler, A. [Department of Natural Resource Management South Dakota State University Brookings South Dakota USA]%ABecker, Heidi [Department of Natural Resource Management South Dakota State University Brookings South Dakota USA]%AKelsey, Katharine [Department of Geography and Environmental Science University of Colorado‐Denver Denver Colorado USA]%ASpalinger, Donald [Department of Biological Sciences University of Alaska‐Anchorage Anchorage Alaska USA]%AWelker, Jeffrey [Department of Biological Sciences University of Alaska‐Anchorage Anchorage Alaska USA, Ecology and Genetics Research Unit and UArctic University of Oulu Oulu Finland]%BJournal Name: Ecosphere; Journal Volume: 13; Journal Issue: 6; Related Information: CHORUS Timestamp: 2023-11-22 18:41:04 %D2022%IWiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons) %JJournal Name: Ecosphere; Journal Volume: 13; Journal Issue: 6; Related Information: CHORUS Timestamp: 2023-11-22 18:41:04 %K %MOSTI ID: 10368440 %PMedium: X %TShort‐term effects of summer warming on caribou forage quality are mitigated by long‐term warming %X
Rapid Arctic climate change is leading to woody plant‐dominated ecosystems with potential consequences for caribou foraging and nutritional ecology. While warming has been clearly linked to shrub expansion, the influence of higher temperatures on variables linked to the leaf‐level quality of caribou forage is equivocal. Moreover, warming results in a complex set of ecosystem changes that operate on different timescales such as not only rapidly accelerating phenology, but also slowly increasing thaw depth and plant access to soil resources. Here, we compare changes in leaf nitrogen (N) concentration, digestibility, and protein‐precipitating capacity (PPC) in short‐term (i.e., <1–2 summers) and long‐term (approximately 25 years) experimental warming plots with ambient temperature plots for three species commonly included in caribou summer diets: