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Navigating Disturbance Regimes in the New Arctic
The rapid pace of climate change in Arctic regions is resulting in dramatic changes to tundra disturbances regimes. Of particular interest is understanding the interactions between climate, fire, permafrost thaw, and vegetation dynamics. These complex dynamics are currently unresolved, highlighting a knowledge gap in critical processes that affect Arctic communities.
The principal investigators of this project, Mark Lara (University of Illinois) and Melissa Chipman (Syracuse University), teamed up in both 2021 and 2023 to collect a suite of spatial and palaeoecological datasets from areas impacted by thermal erosion (e.g., retrogressive thaw slumps) and/or fire. Specifically, they (1) characterized above and belowground patterns of vegetation and soil parameters on the ground and through the air using drones and/or aircraft measuring multispectral, hyperspectral, and LiDAR data, and (2) collected adjacent lake sediment cores, to investigate the short and long-term interactions and trajectories of these vulnerable arctic ecosystems in the face of altered disturbance regimes. In total, they collected coincident datasets from ~25 sites spanning a gradient of modern fire activity to explore linkages between climate-driven disturbances and their impact on vegetation dynamics across space and time. They were joined on remote field expeditions to the Alaskan North Slope and the Noatak River Watershed by two graduate students, Emma Hall and Briana Egderton, and Dr. Christian Andersen from the University of Wisconsin.
The PIs are currently analyzing and processing new datasets. Preliminary results have been shared at national conferences, including AGU, and several manuscripts are currently being prepared for publication.
For more information, email Project PIs Mark J. Lara (mjlara@illinois.edu) and Melissa Chipman (mlchipma@syr.edu).
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