Few studies have clearly linked long-term monitoring with in situ experiments to clarify potential drivers of observed change at a given site. This is especially necessary when findings from a site are applied to a much broader geographic area. Here, we document vegetation change at Barrow and Atqasuk, Alaska, occurring naturally and due to experimental warming over nearly two decades. An examination of plant cover, canopy height, and community indices showed more significant differences between years than due to experimental warming. However, changes with warming were more consistent than changes between years and were cumulative in many cases. Most cases of directional change observed in the control plots over time corresponded with a directional change in response to experimental warming. These included increases in canopy height and decreases in lichen cover. Experimental warming resulted in additional increases in evergreen shrub cover and decreases in diversity and bryophyte cover. This study suggests that the directional changes occurring at the sites are primarily due to warming and indicates that further changes are likely in the next two decades if the regional warming trend continues. These findings provide an example of the utility of coupling in situ experiments with long-term monitoring to accurately document vegetation change in response to global change and to identify the underlying mechanisms driving observed changes.

The goal of this study is to determine if the response of arctic plants to warming is consistent across species, locations and time. This study examined the impact of experimental warming and natural temperature variation on plants at Barrow and Atqasuk, Alaska beginning in 1994. We considered observations of plant performance collected from 1994–2000 “short-term” and those from 2007–2012 “long-term”. The plant traits reported are the number of inflorescences, inflorescence height, leaf length, and day of flower emergence. These traits can inform us about larger scale processes such as plant reproductive effort, plant growth, and plant phenology, and therefore provide valuable insight into community dynamics, carbon uptake, and trophic interactions. We categorized traits of all species monitored at each site into temperature response types. We then compared response types across traits, plant growth forms, sites, and over time to analyze the consistency of plant response to warming. Graminoids were the most responsive to warming and showed a positive response to temperature, while shrubs were generally the least responsive. Almost half (49%) of response types (across all traits, species, and sites combined) changed from short-term to long-term. The percent of plants responsive to warming decreased from 57% (short-term) to 46% (long-term). These results indicate that the response of plants to warming varies over time and has diminished overall in recent years.