2013 Recap

During last summer, my faithful camera died. I can't really blame it, after all it has traversed the Brooks Range, survived countless days in a backpack with miscellaneous field equipment, and been literally frozen solid. Needless to say, I have been pretty frustrated by the lack of pictures from my 2013 field season! Luckily I managed to scrape together a few shots with the help of a few borrowed cameras and Tom Lane. Tom is a Vermont high school teacher who worked with our lab group through PolarTrec; a program that gives teachers first hand experience with climate change research that introduces teachers to field research in polar regions. Tom made a great addition to our team last summer and got a lot of good photos that he has posted through the his journal on Polartrec's website.

Here our technician John is checking out the inner workings of one of our autochamber systems that measures carbon dioxide exchange between the plants, soil, and atmosphere. Photo credit Tom Lane

In this photo John and I are walking out to the warming experiment. Since this photo was taken we have installed some more boardwalks on this path so we spent a little less time tripping over tussocks this summer! Photo credit Tom Lane

Photo credit Tom Lane

2013 was a very good year for the sedge Eriophorum vaginatum. In July the tundra was covered in these white flowers! I love the way they bobble in the wind.

The view from our driveway east towards the town of Healy, AK. The white in the foreground is from all the Eriophorum flowers.

Home sweet home! We live on a cabin on Regulus so we get to pause here and admire the view on our way to the field every morning.

This is a section of a permafrost soil core that Jack and I collected in June 2013. Check out the frozen ice lens at the end! These samples were collected for a soil incubation experiment that I now have up and running in the lab in Gainesville, Florida. Since taking this picture I can tell you a whole lot about the chemistry of this particular chunk of soil.

Jack taking notes on the permafrost cores we collecting. You can see the engine we use for drilling into the permafrost laying on the tundra in the background. The things that look like burritos next to Jack are segments of a core that have been lifted up out of the hole as we drill deeper and deeper.

This little guy showed up to help drill permafrost!

This image is from one of the instruments we use regularly: the Tetracam. It is a specialized camera with filters for near-infrared and red wavelengths of light. Signals for these wavelengths are used to calculate the normal difference vegetation index (NDVI) for our plots every week. Indices like NDVI are useful because they can be used to relate processes that we monitor in our plots (carbon dioxide exchange, plant biomass, leaf senescence) to satellite images of much larger landscapes.

Shovel Week 2013

I spent this week in Healy, Alaska shoveling sow at our CiPEHR manipulative warming experiment (Carbon in Permafrost Experimental Heating Research). We use snow fences to build up large snowbanks that insulate the soil from cold winter air temperatures. This warming treatment raises soil temperatures by a few degrees in winter and increases thaw depth by a few centimeters in summer. The CiPEHR experiment was designed to inform our understanding of how high latitude systems will respond to climate change.

Unfortunately, the large snow banks that have built up all winter have gotta go before spring rolls around! If they were left in place they would increase the water inputs to our plots and shorten the growing season (because they take so long to melt out). 

Arriving at the experiment on snow machines

Only the tops of the snow fences were actually visible when we started

Shoveling and hauling snow off plot kept us busy for about 6 hours a day. 

This is the only picture of the process for two reasons (1) I was busy shoveling and (2) my camera kept freezing.

Lunch break! Mmm, frozen PB&J sandwiches 

Finally able to see the entire fence! They are 1.5 meters high

Dismantling the fences so a surprise spring snow storm doesn't undo all our hard work

Snow machine maintenance

Elizabeth digging into the snow to measure soil respiration rates

Victory!

Hey guys, where are you going without me?

The wall tent where I do most of my lab work in the summer is looking a little chilly right now

Elizabeth & sled dog pup!

My plots are out there somewhere under all that white stuff

View down the valley

Home sweet home! This is the spruce forest outside our cabin at sunset (10:30pm)

I am headed back to FL to finish up the semester but will be back in AK starting late May. Hopefully some of the snow will have melted by then!

Hairy Butterworts & other fun field photographs

 Here is a random assortment of photos from the last couple of weeks in Healy. I have been pretty busy with field work but every now and then I remember to get the camera out. Enjoy!

Marchantia polymorpha, a liverwort living under the porch of our cabin

This squirrel lives near our cabin and has gotten quite bold- he like to break into our compost bucket and steal food scraps. Sometimes he swears at me from the trees as I make my way to the outhouse. 

Chocolate cookies made to celebrate a long week of point framing.

 The neighbors expressing their political views while adding a little decoration to their dog-poop pile

 

 Going, Going, Gone! 

These photographs all depict the same 60 x 60cm square of tundra. For my research this summer I am setting up some experimental plots in which all of the aboveground plant material is removed. I will be using these plots to better understand the role plants play in soil decomposition and nitrogen cycling.

 Pinguicula villosa, aka the Hairy butterwort!

This is a carnivorous plant that lives in mossy patches of the tundra. Small insects get trapped inside the leaves and are slowly digested. The leaves in this photo look a bit like a gaping maw, no?

The Hairy butterwort is a very small plant: there are two growing in this patch of Dicranum moss but they are overshadowed by the large Rubus chamaemorus (cloudberry) leaves.

 Vicious