Subarctic Islands

Imported predators transform subarctic islands from grassland to tundra

It is often discussed whether top robbers have a major impact on bag population, but whether these impacts have a major impact on the basis of land-based feeding nets. Only a few instances of cascading trophies are sufficiently potent to change the wealth and makeup of whole crop cooperatives. On the Aleutische Archipelipelago we show that the advent of polar fox ( "Alopex lagopus") caused major changes in crop production and collective structures via a previously uncharted path.

The prey of sea birds caused chestnuts to reduce the transportation of nutrients from the oceans to the countryside, impairing ground fecundity and turning grassland into dwarf-shrubs/forb-dominated erosion.

sunday, may 13, 2018

Waters, skies and snow-covered peaks extend in all directions as far as the eyes can see. Elke, our head of the journey, says good mornings through the speeches and tells us that we are just before the Danskøya pass, where the unfortunate journey of the Swede André began in 1897.

He was aiming to get to the North Pole with a hydrobaloon, but the three participants of the mission fell on the ocean and were found 33 years later killed on Kvitøya. During the first Zodiac ride we already meet game. Near the place where Andrée constructed the shed where he kept his ballon, six harbor lions rest on the slick cliff.

Twenty-minute later, we go on land on the old whaling spot Smeerenburg and face an entire colony of walruses. It' s lunchtime for today' s second Zodiac tour, and although many of us are still a little chilly after the last trip, it is not possible to override them.

Through the speeches Elke has just informed us that the leaders have seen a big beast on the other side of the fiord, and this could be the first and last opportunity for this mission to see a bear. It' totally quiet while we're driving in the Zodiac, and there's uproar.

As we approach the place where the cubs were seen, we can only see hills, cliffs and snows. Hills, cliffs and snows. The only thing I can overhear are the ripples that softly hit the sign of the zodiac, then the bank and the noise of a video recorder that concentrates on the area. I am sure that someone said something, altered his zodiac and perhaps said: "I can't see...", but I can't listen to any of it.

There is a feeling that the number of people in the whole wide globe who have seen this cannot be very great. Your true-to-nature and laid-back behavior shows that our present, which now includes three more Zodiacs standing softly and smoothly beside us, doesn't disturb you at all.