In the frigid seas halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, two types of animals browse the palatable vegetation of a high-tundra archipelago, munching on thick moss, cropped grasses and low-lying shrubs. New research from a group led by Matteo Petit Bon from the Quinney College of Natural Resources is working to untangle the ecosystem impacts that two major players — geese and reindeer — have on a changing and vulnerable Arctic system.
Reindeer have been year-round residents on the islands of Svalbard for thousands of years, but at one point were almost completely gone. Svalbard reindeer, unlike their southern cousins, tend to be docile and extremely sedentary, making them easy targets for hunting. Miners, trappers and overwintering sailing expeditions relied on reindeer for food, and by 1900 the animals were more or less locally extirpated, although a few isolated areas had small populations persist, according to Mathilde Le Moullec, a coauthor on the study from the Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Those few reindeer were important, however, because they provided a population to slowly recolonize after the Norwegian government extended full protection to the animals. Now reindeer populations on Svalbard have expanded to over 20,000 animals.
Read more at Utah State University
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