title: Survival of rapidly fluctuating natural low winter temperatures by High Arctic soil invertebrates.
abstract: The extreme polar environment creates challenges for its resident invertebrate communities and the stress tolerance of some of these animals has been examined over many years. However, although it is well appreciated that standard air temperature records often fail to describe accurately conditions experienced at microhabitat level, few studies have explicitly set out to link field conditions experienced by natural multispecies communities with the more detailed laboratory ecophysiological studies of a small number of 'representative' species. This is particularly the case during winter, when snow cover may insulate terrestrial habitats from extreme air temperature fluctuations. Further, climate projections suggest large changes in precipitation will occur in the polar regions, with the greatest changes expected during the winter period and, hence, implications for the insulation of overwintering microhabitats. To assess survival of natural High Arctic soil invertebrate communities contained in soil and vegetation cores to natural winter temperature variations, the overwintering temperatures they experienced were manipulated by deploying cores in locations with varying snow accumulation: No Snow, Shallow Snow (30 cm) and Deep Snow (120 cm). Air temperatures during the winter period fluctuated frequently between +3 and -24 °C, and the No Snow soil temperatures reflected this variation closely, with the extreme minimum being slightly lower. Under 30 cm of snow, soil temperatures varied less and did not decrease below -12 °C. Those under deep snow were even more stable and did not decline below -2 °C. Despite these striking differences in winter thermal regimes, there were no clear differences in survival of the invertebrate fauna between treatments, including oribatid, prostigmatid and mesostigmatid mites, Araneae, Collembola, Nematocera larvae or Coleoptera. This indicates widespread tolerance, previously undocumented for the Araneae, Nematocera or Coleoptera, of both direct exposure to at least -24 °C and the rapid and large temperature fluctuations. These results suggest that the studied polar soil invertebrate community may be robust to at least one important predicted consequence of projected climate change.
authors.affiliation: British Antarctic Survey, NERC, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 OET, UK; Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand; Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway. Electronic address: pcon@bas.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Convey
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø 9037, Norway.
authors.forename: Holly
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Abbandonato
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Environmental and Health Studies, Telemark University College, Hallvard Eikas Plass, Bø 3800, Norway.
authors.forename: Frode
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bergan
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø 9037, Norway; Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, Faculty of Forest and Environment, Alfred-Möller-Straße 1, Eberswalde 16225, Germany.
authors.forename: Larissa Teresa
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Beumer
authors.affiliation: British Antarctic Survey, NERC, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 OET, UK; Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø 9037, Norway; Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EA, UK.
authors.forename: Elisabeth Machteld
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Biersma
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Natural Sciences Building, Trondheim 7491, Norway.
authors.forename: Vegard Sandøy
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Bråthen
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Section for Forest, Nature and Biomass, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg C 1958, Denmark; Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, Copenhagen K DK-1350, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ludovica
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: D'Imperio
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø 9037, Norway; Department of Environmental, Social and Spartial Change, Roskilde University, Roskilde 4000, Denmark.
authors.forename: Christina Kjellerup
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Natural Sciences Building, Trondheim 7491, Norway.
authors.forename: Solveig
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nilsen
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø 9037, Norway.
authors.forename: Karolina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Paquin
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø 9037, Norway; Icelandic Institute of Natural History, Urriðaholtsstræti 6-8, Garðabær 212, Iceland; Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland, Askja, Sturlugata 7, Reykjavík 101, Iceland.
authors.forename: Ute
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Stenkewitz
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Pb. 1066 Blindern, Oslo 0316, Norway.
authors.forename: Mildrid Elvik
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Svoen
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway; Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø 9037, Norway; Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, Copenhagen K DK-1350, Denmark.
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Winkler
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway.
authors.forename: Eike
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Pb. 156, Longyearbyen, Svalbard 9171, Norway.
authors.forename: Stephen James
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Coulson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001110:Arctic Regions; D057231:Climate Change; D007448:Invertebrates / Q000502:physiology*; D009664:Norway; D012621:Seasons; D012914:Snow; D012987:Soil; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D012987:Soil
keywords: Climate change; Freeze-thaw; Microarthropod; Polar; Snow