Climate warming is shifting northern aquatic ecotones

Northern ecosystems are undergoing major changes in response to amplified warming, including range migrations due to changing environmental constraints on species distributions. The circumpolar Arctic's abundant freshwater ecosystems are highly sensitive to increasing temperatures as well as the effects of warming-induced changes in terrestrial catchment vegetation and soils. Here, we examine a 1400 km-long transect in Arctic and Subarctic Canada and show northward shifts in aquatic ecotones over the past ~ 25 years in response to accelerated regional warming.