Harmonizing circumpolar monitoring of Arctic fox: benefits, opportunities, challenges and recommendations

ABSTRACT

The biodiversity working group of the Arctic Council has developed pan-Arctic biodiversity monitoring plans to improve our ability to detect, understand and report on long-term change in Arctic biodiversity. The Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) was identified as a target of future monitoring because of its circumpolar distribution, ecological importance and reliance on Arctic ecosystems. We provide the first exhaustive survey of contemporary Arctic fox monitoring programmes, describing 34 projects located in eight countries. Monitored populations covered equally the four climate zones of the species’ distribution, and there were large differences between populations in long-term trends, multi-annual fluctuations, diet composition, degree of competition with red fox and human interferences. Den density, number of active dens, number of breeding dens and litter size were assessed in almost all populations, while projects varied greatly with respect to monitoring of other variables indicative of population status, ecosystem state or ecosystem function. We review the benefits, opportunities and challenges to increased integration of monitoring projects. We argue that better harmonizing protocols of data collection and data management would allow new questions to be addressed while adding tremendous value to individual projects. However, despite many opportunities, challenges remain. We offer six recommendations that represent decisive progress toward a better integration of Arctic fox monitoring projects. Further, our work serves as a template that can be used to integrate monitoring efforts of other species, thereby providing a key step for future assessments of global biodiversity.

KEYWORDS:

• Alopex lagopus
• Arctic ecosystems
• biodiversity assessment
• biodiversity indicator
• data management
• protocol harmonization

ABBREVIATIONS:

• CAFF: Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna
• IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature

Acknowledgements

We thank the funders and permitting authorities of the 34 described Arctic fox monitoring projects. Although we cannot name all these organizations, their support is much appreciated. We also warmly thank the many people who contributed to the data life cycles of the projects. Nicolas Casajus created Figs. 1–4 and Helen Wheeler and the discussion group of the Canada Research Chair on Northern Biodiversity provided helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.