Vegetation monitoring occurs across the Arctic, but the duration of monitoring efforts is variable and is dependent upon both study design and access to resources. Although many field studies on vegetation have been conducted in the Arctic (Figure 3-5), not all can be considered monitoring since some recorded only select measurements over limited time frames. Studies reporting on abundance and composition of vegetation reflect a larger and more widespread geographical coverage than the typically more site-limited and time-consuming phenology studies (Figure 3-5). Geographical gaps in coverage of Siberia and large parts of the Canadian Arctic are evident. STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 3 - Page 34 - Figure 3.5

Trends in Arctic terrestrial bird population abundance for four taxonomic groupings in four global flyways. Data are presented as total number of taxa (species, subspecies). Modified from Smith et al. 2020. These broad patterns were generally consistent across flyways, with some exceptions. Fewer waterfowl populations increased in the Central Asian and East Asian–Australasian Flyways. The largest proportion of declining species was among the waders in all but the Central Asian Flyway where the trends of a large majority of waders are unknown. Although declines were more prevalent among waders than other taxonomic groups in both the African–Eurasian and Americas Flyways, the former had a substantially larger number of stable and increasing species than the latter (Figure 3-23). STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 3 - Page 55 - Figure 3.23

There is a great variation and heterogeneity among terrestrial Arctic ecosystems. This is further described as biogeographical areas in the Annotated Checklist of the Pan-Arctic Flora (Elven et al. 2020), as vegetation zones (Walker et al. 2005, Raynolds et al 2019) or as ecoregions recognised by Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (Olson et al. 2001). The START focuses on high and low Arctic regions consistent with the CAVM’s subzones A to E, as shown in Figure 1-2 and Figure 2-1 STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 2 - Page 19 - Figure 2.1

The baseline survey and ongoing monitoring required to adequately describe Arctic arthropod biodiversity and to identify trends is largely lacking. Although some existing publications reporting long-term and extensive sampling exist, they are limited in species level information, taxonomic coverage and/or geographic location/extent (Figure 3-19) STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 3 - Page 44 - Figure 3.19

The Arctic terrestrial food web includes the exchange of energy and nutrients. Arrows to and from the driver boxes indicate the relative effect and counter effect of different types of drivers on the ecosystem. STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 2 - Page 26- Figure 2.4

Temporal trends of arthropod abundance for three habitat types at Zackenberg Research Station, Greenland, 1996–2016. Data are grouped as the FEC ‘arthropod prey for vertebrates’ and separated by habitat type. Solid lines indicate significant regression lines at the p<0.05. Modified from Gillespie et al. 2020a. STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 3 - Page 39 - Figure 3.9

Arctic foxes are currently monitored at 34 sites throughout the North, with most monitoring efforts concentrated in Fennoscandia (Figure 3-32). The duration of monitoring across all sites is variable at between 2 and 56 years and was ongoing at 27 of the 34 sites (79%) as of 2015. Monitoring projects cover almost equally the four climate zones of the species’ distribution—high Arctic, low Arctic, sub-Arctic, and montane/alpine. STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 3 - Page 82 - Figure 3.32

Many population counts of gregarious migrant species, such as waders and geese, take place along the flyways and at wintering grounds outside the Arctic which stresses the importance of continued development of movement ecology studies. Monitoring of FEC attributes related to breeding success and links to environmental drivers within the Arctic takes place in a wide network of research sites across the Arctic, although with low coverage of the high Arctic zone (Figure 3-25) STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 3 - Page 58 - Figure 3.25

The CBMP–Terrestrial Plan identifies five FECs for monitoring terrestrial birds; herbivores, insectivores, carnivores, omnivores and piscivores. Due to their migratory nature, a wider range of drivers, from both within and outside the Arctic, affect birds and their associated FEC attributes compared to other terrestrial FECs. Figure 3-21 illustrates a conceptual model for Arctic terrestrial birds that includes examples of FECs and key drivers. STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 3 - Page 46 - Figure 3.21

Rates of change among different terrestrial parameters, using average annual standardised data for the pan-Arctic. *identifies parameters with statistically significant trends. STATE OF THE ARCTIC TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 3 - Page 95 - Figure 3.33