ArticleNature ecology & evolution2018
Patchy field sampling biases understanding of climate change impacts across the Arctic.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Increases in Arctic Extreme Climatic Events Are Linked to Negative Fitness Effects on the Local Biota.Global change biology · 2025Pooled it
- Herbivore diversity effects on Arctic tundra ecosystems: a systematic review.Environmental evidence · 2024Pooled it
- Increasing climatic sensitivity of global grassland vegetation biomass and species diversity correlates with water availability.The New phytologist · 2021Pooled it
- Current and projected effects of climate change in cryosphere microbial ecosystems.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Gaps in tropical science from unrepresentative distribution of sampling and citation across natural terrestrial environments.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Warming-Induced Effects on Microbial Communities and Nitrogen Cycling Capacity in Tundra Litter Are Modulated by Herb Abundance and Litter Quality.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Climate-carbon feedback tradeoff between Arctic and alpine permafrost under warming.Science advances · 2025Article
- Volumetric quantifications and dynamics of areas undergoing retrogressive thaw slumping in the Northern Hemisphere.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Russian dilemma for global arctic science.Ambio · 2024Article
- Article
- The Arctic Plant Aboveground Biomass Synthesis Dataset.Scientific data · 2024Article
- The Expanding Diversity of Viruses from Extreme Environments.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Soil nutrient content dominates short-term vegetation changes in alpine tundra of Changbai Mountains.Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Abrupt permafrost thaw triggers activity of copiotrophs and microbiome predators.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2023Article
- Advances in Catchment Science, Hydrochemistry, and Aquatic Ecology Enabled by High-Frequency Water Quality Measurements.Environmental science & technology · 2023Review
- Trends in the direction of global plant invasion biology research over the past two decades.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Article
- Herbivores in Arctic ecosystems: Effects of climate change and implications for carbon and nutrient cycling.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2022Review
- Assessing dynamic vegetation model parameter uncertainty across Alaskan arctic tundra plant communities.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
29 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Effective societal responses to rapid climate change in the Arctic rely on an accurate representation of region-specific ecosystem properties and processes. However, this is limited by the scarcity and patchy distribution of field measurements. Here, we use a comprehensive, geo-referenced database of primary field measurements in 1,840 published studies across the Arctic to identify statistically significant spatial biases in field sampling and study citation across this globally important region. We find that 31% of all study citations are derived from sites located within 50 km of just two research sites: Toolik Lake in the USA and Abisko in Sweden. Furthermore, relatively colder, more rapidly warming and sparsely vegetated sites are under-sampled and under-recognized in terms of citations, particularly among microbiology-related studies. The poorly sampled and cited areas, mainly in the Canadian high-Arctic archipelago and the Arctic coastline of Russia, constitute a large fraction of the Arctic ice-free land area. Our results suggest that the current pattern of sampling and citation may bias the scientific consensuses that underpin attempts to accurately predict and effectively mitigate climate change in the region. Further work is required to increase both the quality and quantity of sampling, and incorporate existing literature from poorly cited areas to generate a more representative picture of Arctic climate change and its environmental impacts.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.