The Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna is a working group under the Arctic Council, for the countries of Russia, Denmark, USA, Canada, Sweden, Iceland, Norway and Finland and indigenous peoples. Monitoring, assessment, protected areas and conservation strategies are all tasks under this working group. The area that the working group primarily addresses is presented in this map.

It is clear from lower latitudes that phenological trends are linked to temperature changes and experimental warming also results in earlier plant phenology. Yet, in Arctic and alpine ecosystems, the melting of the winter snow pack rather than temperature per se determines the onset of biological activity like the timing of flowering in plants and emergence in invertebrates. As such, the phenology of these groups of organisms, or taxa, could be a...

A very high-resolution false color Ikonos-2 satellite image of Jauristunturit in the border zone shared by Norway and Finland. Image acquired 28 June 2001. The main vegetation type is lichen dominated tundra heath with dwarf shrubs. The difference in whiteness is due to lichen coverage, and the national border with reindeer fence visibly divides the area. The northern portion is Norway, where fruticose lichen coverage is higher. This is a consequ...

The harvest of natural resources is a key feature of traditional lifestyles and economies throughout the Arctic, and a continuing reliance on it as a mainstay of indigenous existence in the north is evident. In Alaska, wild food harvests vary considerably by geographic area. The total harvest has been estimated at about 43.7 million pounds (approximately 19.8 million kg) of wild resources, an average of about 375 pounds (170 kg) per capita. This ...

The Arctic contains a variety of types of lakes but overall, it is thermokarst lakes and ponds that are the most abundant and productive aquatic ecosystems in the Arctic. They are found extensively in the lowland regions of western and northern Alaska, Canada and Siberia. These (i.e., thaw) lakes are most commonly formed by the thaw of ice-rich permafrost, which leads to the collapse of ground levels and ponding of surface water in the depression...

The two species of murres (known as guillemots in Europe), the thick-billed murre, Uria lomvia, and common murre, Uria aalge, both have circumpolar distributions, breeding in Arctic, sub-Arctic, and temperate seas from California and northern Spain to northern Greenland, high Arctic Canada, Svalbard, and Novaya Zemlya. The thick-billed murre occurs mostly in Arctic waters, while the common murre, although overlapping extensively with the thick-bi...

Language not only communicates, it defines culture, nature, history, humanity, and ancestry. The indigenous languages of the Arctic have been formed and shaped in close contact with their environment. They are a valuable source of information and a wealth of knowledge on human interactions with nature is encoded in these languages. If a language is lost, a world is lost. This deep knowledge and interconnectedness is expressed in Arctic song, subs...

Arctic vegetation has undergone enormous change in the past, most notably in response to the glacial and interglacial periods of the Quaternary. Data from many sources and at several scales suggest that recent climate change is already affecting terrestrial Arctic ecosystems. Comparisons of historical and contemporary aerial photographs provide evidence that Arctic vegetation has already undergone significant shifts in recent decades, foreshadowi...

Language not only communicates, it defines culture, nature, history, humanity, and ancestry. The indigenous languages of the Arctic have been formed and shaped in close contact with their environment. They are a valuable source of information and a wealth of knowledge on human interactions with nature is encoded in these languages. If a language is lost, a world is lost. This deep knowledge and interconnectedness is expressed in Arctic song, subs...

Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) was found to be sensitive to the warming scenarios and the model predicted that it would be extirpated in most of its range even under the milder warming scenario. This is due to its occurrence in the Arctic Ocean, which largely precludes it from moving northwards. Polar cod was predicted to be extirpated around Greenland and its abundance was largely reduced in other parts of the Arctic Ocean after 30 years of hypot...

Dramatic changes, such as sea ice loss, are projected to occur in Arctic ecosystems over the next century. Understanding how the Arctic’s living resources, including its vertebrate species, are responding to these changes is essential in order to develop effective conservation and adaptation strategies. Arctic species that are adapted to these extreme environments are expected to be displaced, in part, by the encroachment of more southerly specie...

The Arctic plays host to a vast array of biodiversity, including many globally significant populations. Included among these are more than half of the world´s shorebird species, 80% of the global goose populations, several million reindeer and caribou, and many unique mammals, such as the polar bear. During the short summer breeding season, 279 species of birds arrive from as far away as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and South America to ...

Nucleotide diversity estimates based on the complete sequences of mitochondrial genome in the collared lemming indicate how past climate has structured the genetic component of biodiversity. Lower diversity in regions (green) affected by the northward forest expansion during the Holocene warm climatic events compared to Western Beringia, where there was no forest expansion, suggests a reduction of effective size due to regional range contracti...

Distribution and spawning areas of arctic cod, polar cod, herring and capelin in the Barents Sea region. The Barents region is in the Arctic and covers the area of Western Russia and the northern areas of Finland, Sweden and Norway.

Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) was found to be sensitive to the warming scenarios and the model predicted that it would be extirpated in most of its range even under the milder warming scenario. This is due to its occurrence in the Arctic Ocean, which largely precludes it from moving northwards. Polar cod was predicted to be extirpated around Greenland and its abundance was largely reduced in other parts of the Arctic Ocean after 30 years of hypot...

Distribution and observed trends of wild Rangifer populations throughout the circumpolar Arctic (from The Circum Arctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment Network, CARMA). Note: Wild boreal forest reindeer have not been mapped by CARMA and thus are not represented here. Currently wild reindeer and caribou have declined by about 33% since populations (herds) peaked in the 1990s and early 2000s (3.8 million compared to 5.6 million) which followed ...

As climate change alters Arctic ecosystems and enables greater human activity, biological invasions are likely to increase in the Arctic. To some extent, Arctic terrestrial ecosystems may be predisposed to invasion because many invasive plants are adapted to open disturbed areas. Range map scenarios developed for 16 highly invasive plants either occurring in or at risk of invading Alaska also paint a sobering outlook for the future. This map dep...

Polar bears occur in 19 relatively discrete subpopulations with an estimated worldwide abundance of 20,000– 25,000 animals. Our knowledge of the status and trend of each subpopulation varies due to availability, reliability, and age of data. Furthermore, for many subpopulations, there is limited or no data collected over a sufficient period of time to examine trends. Based on a 2009 review of the worldwide status of polar bears, one of 19 subpopu...

Illustration in a set of graphics prepared for a pilot assessment report on the Black Sea drainage basin, for the UNEP Global Impact on Waters Assessment (GIWA). All data and information were prepared in close collaboration with the GIWA Black Sea team and the GIWA secretariat. The graphics were never not used in this form in the final report on the Black Sea, published in 2005.

Worldwide there are thought to be 22,000-27,000 polar bears (Ursus maritimus)in 20 separate populations. They can be found in the United States, Canada, Russia, Greenland and on the Arctic islands of Norway.