Local adaptation and the response of Arctic tundra to climate change

In 1990, Fetcher and Shaver proposed that ecotypic differentiation in Arctic plants could affect primary productivity because ecotypes from sites where productivity is restricted by cold temperatures may not be as capable of responding to an increase in temperature as ecotypes from warmer regions. In the coming decades, the predicted course of warming in the Arctic should provide multiple tests for this hypothesis. If it is supported, the effect of climate change on Arctic plant communities may be much less predictable than would be the case for plant populations that are not differentiated into ecotypes.