The Physiology of Betula glandusa on Two Sunny Summer Days in the Arctic and Linkages with Optical Imagery

Abstract

Controls on Arctic vegetation physiology have been linked to microscale (1–100 m) topography and landscape position, yet drivers may change under future climates as temperature, active-layer thickness, and nutrient limitations are removed or altered. Focusing on the cosmopolitan dwarf birch (Betula glandusa), physiological metrics were measured over two field campaigns at Trail Valley Creek, NWT, Canada, and linked to tasked and archived multispectral imagery to investigate drivers. Relative humidity was ~31.1% on 25 June 2023, and increased to 45.6% on 29 June 2023, which corresponded to heightened physiological activity of stomatal conductance and light-adapted fluorescence (gsm: 0.118 vs. 0.165 μmol m−2 s−1, Fs: 129.29 vs. 178.42). Normalized difference vegetation index of AVIRIS, Sentinel 2, and SkySat were negligibly correlated to dwarf birch physiological activity, but moderately correlated to dwarf birch height and active-layer thickness. Random forest variable importance revealed that environmental factors and field-measured active-layer thickness ranked higher than remote sensing metrics in explaining physiological activity regardless of the field campaign. Overall, these findings suggest that microscale variation can influence dwarf birch physiological activity, yet microscale effects are overwritten by environmental conditions that may hinder fine-scale space-based monitoring of Arctic vegetation physiological dynamics.