World News for Students of English

09-06-2025 15:00

The Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth. This rapid warming affects not only glaciers and animals like caribou but also Arctic plant life.

Scientists from Team Shrub study how plant communities are changing, especially shrubs, which are now growing taller and becoming more common. This process is called shrubification, and it can harm the environment, as it affects food sources like lichen that caribou need to survive. The growth of shrubs also makes it harder for caribou to migrate and avoid predators. Although the total number of Arctic plant species is not changing much overall, there are big local differences. Some areas are experiencing changes in the kinds of plants that grow there. Moreover, researchers are using drones and large data sets to monitor these shifts in detail.

These changes do not only affect animals but also people. For northern Indigenous communities, caribou are culturally and economically important. Climate change in the Arctic is no longer a future threat. It is already happening.

Difficult words: shrub (a small bushy plant), shrubification (when shrubs grow bigger and spread more), lichen (a small plant-like growth that grows on rocks).

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