{"id":654,"date":"2014-03-23T17:20:32","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T22:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=654"},"modified":"2014-04-02T11:50:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T16:50:23","slug":"predators-are-the-main-drivers-of-the-arctic-tundra-food-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/predators-are-the-main-drivers-of-the-arctic-tundra-food-chain\/","title":{"rendered":"Predators are the main drivers of the Arctic tundra food chain<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_656\" style=\"width: 760px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Snowy-owl-hunting_Nicolas-Lecomte_mini.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-656\" class=\"size-full wp-image-656\" alt=\"Snowy owl hunting in the tundra.  A new study shows that predators are the main drivers of the Arctic tundra food chain.  (Credit: Nicolas Lecomte)\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Snowy-owl-hunting_Nicolas-Lecomte_mini.jpg\" width=\"750\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Snowy-owl-hunting_Nicolas-Lecomte_mini.jpg 750w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Snowy-owl-hunting_Nicolas-Lecomte_mini-300x196.jpg 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Snowy-owl-hunting_Nicolas-Lecomte_mini-459x300.jpg 459w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-656\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Snowy owl hunting in the tundra. A new study shows that predators are the main drivers of the Arctic tundra food chain. (Credit: Nicolas Lecomte)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A new study shows that predators (Arctic fox, wolves, stoat, snowy owls) are the main drivers of the Arctic tundra food chain. Usually, predators regulate the food chain in a given ecosystem, but researchers previously thought that this view did not apply to the Arctic tundra as there are too few herbivores such as caribou, musk-ox, Arctic hare, geese, lemmings.\u00a0As climate changes drives new predators (such as the Arctic fox) to migrate north, this discovery means that new predators will have more impacts on the Arctic tundra ecosystems than previously thought.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nclimate\/journal\/vaop\/ncurrent\/full\/nclimate2168.html\" target=\"_blank\">Original research paper<\/a><\/span>\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0<em>Nature Climate Change<\/em>\u00a0on\u00a0<strong>March 23, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Names and affiliations of selected authors<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cen.ulaval.ca\/membre.aspx?id=3746424&amp;membre=plegagneux\" target=\"_blank\">Pierre Legagneux<\/a>, Post-doctoral researcher, Department of Biology &amp; Centre d\u2019\u00e9tudes nordiques, Universit\u00e9 du Quebec \u00e0 Rimouski<\/h4>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cen.ulaval.ca\/membre.aspx?id=234460&amp;membre=ggauthier\" target=\"_blank\">Gilles Gauthier<\/a>, Department of biology &amp; Centre d\u2019\u00e9tudes nordiques, Universit\u00e9 Laval<\/h4>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca\/chairholders-titulaires\/profile-eng.aspx?profileId=3088\" target=\"_blank\">Nicolas Lecomte<\/a>, Canada Research Chair in Polar and Boreal Ecology. Department of Biology, University of Moncton<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new study shows that predators (Arctic fox, wolves, stoat, snowy owls) are the main drivers of the Arctic tundra food chain. Usually, predators regulate the food chain in a given ecosystem, but researchers previously thought that this view did not apply to the Arctic tundra as there are too few herbivores such as caribou, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[174,185,869,31,215,849],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-animals","tag-arctic","tag-canada-en","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-quebec-en"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Snowy-owl-hunting_Nicolas-Lecomte_mini.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-ay","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":676,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}