Snowshoe hares prefer many other plants to white spruce seedlings, but when the population of hares skyrockets—as it does about once a decade—they can decimate even a bumper crop of spruce seedlings. Researchers with the Bonanza Creek LTER reconstructed over 40 years of browsing history by analyzing the age and browse scars of thousands of seedlings and saplings at 18 locations on the floodplain of Alaska’s Tanana River.
Talk Description: About 30% of global carbon stocks reside in the vegetation and deep, carbon-rich soils of Arctic tundra and boreal forest biomes. Wildfires—which are becoming more frequent with warmer and drier weather in the Arctic—have the potential to either stabilize or accelerate regional and global warming through carbon feedbacks. By comparing the impact of… Read more »
Unstable ice. Raging rivers. Fire-scorched landscapes. Deep within Alaska’s Yukon River Basin, residents faced with these obstacles during travel or hunting trips now use camera-enabled GPS units to send photographs to researchers across the state. Scientists at the Bonanza Creek LTER and University of Alaska, Fairbanks are using the images, along with the associated GPS… Read more »
Imagine a bear in your office during the workday. This is sometimes reality at the Bonanza Creek LTER, as Alexandria Wenninger tells us!
