Alaska Boreal Forest Soils 

Research focuses on the relationship of Interior Alaska's boreal forest to water in response to climate, environmental, and vegetation change. By measuring how plants use, store and move water, we can study how different plants respond to a variety of weather conditions, water availability and changes in climate. 

 

Current Projects

 

 
A tree water content sensor installed in a birch tree

Boreal Forest Carbon and Water Cycling: Response to Climate and Insect Infestation Using Field Measurements, Dendrochronology, & Remote Sensing

This project explores how environmental variability, such as drought, shifts in snowmelt timing and the presence of permafrost, affects forest health, forest carbon and water cycling. This project also studies the consequences of increased deciduous vegetation cover for boreal ecosystem water and carbon cycling.
A red and black spruce beetle burrowing into a spruce tree

Spruce Response to Beetle Infestation in Alaska: An Evaluation of Tree Ecophysiology Using an Integrated Field and Modeling Approach

This project aims to quantify the ecophysiological response of white spruce to bark beetle infestation in Alaska’s boreal forest, including the characteristics of the early “green attack” phase.
Tree rings

Quantifying Boreal Forest Tree Health, Growth, and Resilience in Response to Climate Change and Pathogens Using Plant Physiology-Informed Dendrochronology

 Using dendrochronology, the study of tree rings to understand tree age, past events and environmental change in combination with information about current relationships between plant physiology and environment, this project how the boreal forest might respond to climate change in the future.
Stacks of firewood under an open sided shed

Firewood Harvesting Based on Tree Water Content

This project uses tree water content data to inform when trees are naturally at their driest and when people should harvest trees for firewood to reduce the amount of time needed to dry the split and stacked wood before burning it for heat.
Spruce trees against a blue sky

Cooperative Alaska Forest Inventory

A comprehensive monitoring program of boreal forest conditions and dynamics in Interior and southcentral Alaska.

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