AGU 2022: Tolerating distress and regulating emotions in research work

IANRE researcher Jessie Young-Robertson is presenting two areas of research at this week's American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in Chicago. The first discussed her ecology work. The second focuses on mental health in science settings: "Tolerating distress and regulating emotions in research work."

Young-Robertson, a boreal forest ecologist and clinical mental health counselor, understands the stress that can accompany field work in remote settings. When researchers end up at a field station or on a research vessel, it may not be possible to get space when experiencing the mental and emotional distress that comes with daily living and doing a difficult job.

“Science is hard, particularly in remote settings,” said Young-Robertson, a University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher who is presenting a paper on the topic at the 2022 American Geophysical Union meeting.

“I think people struggle with managing distress in general,” she said. “And I think sometimes we have a habit of not treating ourselves or each other very well when we’re experiencing distress.”

Young-Robertson noted that distress is different from stress.

“Distress is like a really big feeling and a moment that is hard to manage,” she said. “It could be anger; it could be a big burst of anxiety. It’s usually due to something stressful occurring, like equipment breaking, things not going as planned or interpersonal struggles. Long-term distress tolerance or management is emotion regulation.”

Sometimes when people are in distress, they may do unhelpful things like yell at a colleague or a student, she said. “That has no place in the workplace.” Unmanaged distress can also negatively impact our mental health.

“I think one of the barriers to being inclusive and diverse is that we don’t talk enough about interpersonal and mental health,” Young-Robertson said. “We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.

“And there are some tools that we can use for ourselves to get through the moment and manage things a little bit differently,” she said. Mindfulness aimed at distress tolerance is one of the most accessible tools people can use in remote research environments.

AGU 2022: Consequences of shrub expansion in the boreal forest

Samuel Dempster is an undergraduate working with IANRE boreal ecologist Jessie Young-Robertson. He will talk about his research on "Consequences of shrub expansion in the boreal forest," at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting this week in Chicago.

Here's an excerpt:

In Alaska’s Arctic tundra, changes in permafrost, soil and plant growth due to climate change have been well documented. However, according to University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Samuel Dempster, similar changes in the boreal forest are often overlooked.

Dempster’s goal is to see how alder physiology in the boreal forest responds to changing environmental conditions. The goal is to better understand how expansion of small trees and shrubs will affect large-scale processes in the North.

Dempster studied a stand of alders near Fairbanks in a nonpermafrost area where the small trees are spreading.

“I was looking at them from breakup all the way to the first snow,” Dempster said. He gathered weekly measurements of stem and leaf water content, photosynthesis and transpiration, along with other related variables.

Dempster said another question he asked was “Are (the alders) looking good where all of the other trees are not doing that great?” Summer 2022 in Interior Alaska was hot and dry. The alders responded to the conditions with higher transpiration rates and lower photosynthesis rates overall. However, the trees maintained a stem water content of around 50%, suggesting they were able to regulate some physiological processes to cope with the hot, dry conditions.

That indicates alders may tolerate seasonal drought conditions, which may let them expand in areas with climate change.

Young-Robertson also contributed to the study.

AGU 2022: Boreal tree adaptation to seasonal drought conditions

IANRE researcher Jessie Young-Robertson is presenting a paper this week at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in Chicago on "Boreal tree adaptation to seasonal drought conditions."

Here's an excerpt:

Climate change is bringing shifting rainfall patterns and warmer temperatures to the boreal forest. At the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Young-Robertson is studying how boreal trees store and regulate water use.

“I want to talk about the drought response of boreal forest trees over a long period of time,” Young-Robertson said. “By drought response, I mean how the trees use water, how stressed they get and how they respond to environmental changes in air temperature and rainfall.”

The study is focusing on two tree types: coniferous black spruce and deciduous aspen and birch in the Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed near Fairbanks. In summer 2022, sensors measured environmental variables, sap (water) flux and trunk water content every 30 minutes. Canopy water stress measurements were taken weekly.

“The story so far is that we really need a snowpack,” Young-Robertson said. “We’re seeing the impact of earlier springs. We’re seeing the impact of super-hot summers, and we’re seeing the impact in the changing of the packaging of the precipitation.”

The “packaging” of precipitation refers to when and how much rain falls during the summer. Rain that just comes in August has a different effect than rain that falls all summer.

Trees grow in June and July. If it doesn’t rain while the trees are growing, that adds stress, she said. Ongoing work is revealing that the trees are approaching their climatic limit with increased drought pressure.

Falling into autumn: Pretty reds can mean pretty dry and warm

Jessie Young-Robertson

For the News-Miner

Have you noticed more red leaves this autumn compared to the past few years? I have lived here since 2008, and I have never seen so much red in our aspen and birch leaves.

I’m a boreal forest ecologist in the Institute of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Extension at UAF, and I study tree physiology. In the fall, I keep an eye on when the leaves change colors as well as the colors that show up.

Why are there more red leaves this year? It has to do with what the leaf pigments or colors do. First, they absorb light in the visible part of the spectrum.

Chlorophyll makes plants appear green. Chlorophyll is used in photosynthesis, the process of plants using light, carbon dioxide, and water to make oxygen and sugars for growth and reproduction. Chlorophyll is “expensive” for a plant because it “costs” a lot of nitrogen. At the end of the summer, nitrogen is reabsorbed by the plant as the chlorophyll breaks down.

The yellow and orange colors are called carotenoids which is what we see in the autumn.

During summer, carotenoids and chlorophyll are present in the leaf at the same time, but we can only see the green chlorophyll. In the autumn, when the chlorophyll breaks down, the carotenoids’ yellows and oranges are revealed. Most of our forest in Fairbanks appears yellow in the fall.

The combination of chlorophyll and carotenoids makes plants more efficient at capturing a wide range of the light spectrum for photosynthesis. Carotenoids also help the plant shed excess energy to reduce the damage too much sun can cause to leaves.

The red colors are called anthocyanins. Unlike carotenoids, anthocyanins are not present throughout the summer. They are produced in the late summer under a certain set of conditions (we’ll get back to this in a minute). Anthocyanins form a pigment layer that acts as a screen to protect the leaf from sun damage as the plant moves nutrients from the leaves into the stem when chlorophyll breaks down in mid to late August. Studies have found that plants that turn red versus yellow have better protection from high light stress.

What affects the colors we see in autumn? There are species differences. Dwarf birch and the leaves of blueberry plants tend to turn red and/or purple every year. However, aspen and birch tend to turn yellow in Interior Alaska, unless they are affected by the August weather.

In general, plants change color in response to decreasing sunlight. Typically, in August, we have a lot of cloudy days and low sunlight, triggering the plants to start their change. We also have days that are getting shorter, which cues plants for change. The extent of red color and how long leaves show colors depends on temperature and moisture in late summer. More reds are produced when days are warm, sunny, and dry, with cooler nights. These conditions lead to a lot of sugar production in the leaves, which contribute to making the red pigments. Cooler nights narrow the leaf veins and trap sugars in the leaves.

This year in Fairbanks, there are more reds present than in the prior 12 years. Air temperature this August has been warm compared to most years, but it is similar to August 2020 when there were not as many red trees. There has been more sunlight reaching the trees this year compared to most years, but again, this is similar to 2020.

The big difference this year is the amount of rain. Rainfall from May through August was significantly lower than in the past five years: about 3.5 inches this year compared to 8 inches in 2020 (7.3 in 2021, 9 in 2019, 6.9 in 2018). It is likely that the combination of low rainfall, warm temperatures, and more sunlight reaching the trees (due to fewer cloudy days from not raining much) has contributed to more reds this autumn.

Keep an eye out for red aspen and birch when August is dry and warm!

Jessie Young-Robertson is a boreal forest ecologist at University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Institute of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Extension.

Small-grain trials in Fairbanks, Palmer

If you’ve ever driven by the agricultural fields at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and wondered what’s growing there, we have some answers.

Last week, UAF agronomist Mingchu Zhang oversaw the sowing of 32 varieties of wheat and other small grains, including two- and six-row barley, oats, canola and sunflowers in the fields, which are part of the Fairbanks Experiment Farm. The same varieties are also being grown at the Matanuska Experiment Farm in Palmer.

The trials have three major objectives, Zhang said. The first is to select a short-season spring wheat that will grow well in Alaska, adding to the state’s food security. The second is to evaluate a two-row feed barley that also can be used as a malting barley. The third is to find a canola variety with a short growing season that can be used as a cash crop and to rotate with the other grains. The canola and sunflowers can also be used for a short-season oilseed crop.

“Those are our contributions for Alaska food security,” said Zhang, who was named to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Alaska Food Security and Independence Task Force. Currently, Alaska imports about 95% of its food.

Bob Van Veldhuizen, a longtime UAF crop researcher and soils specialist, is overseeing the grain trials in Palmer. He said the seed varieties include one called Ingal, which was developed in Alaska in 1981, that is crossed with a Canadian variety. Other varieties come from Sweden and Washington State University.

The hunt for a wheat variety that will grow well in Alaska has been ongoing for well more than a century, dating at least back to the first agriculture experiment stations in Sitka in 1898 and Rampart in 1900. The problem Alaska farmers have had with wheat is that the varieties that grow to maturity in Alaska’s short growing seasons tend to “shatter,” meaning the grains fall off before the plant can be harvested.

Over the years, Zhang and Van Veldhuizen have tested dozens of varieties of wheat and barley. With each year, they hope to get closer to a variety that can be grown commercially in Alaska and close one gap in the state’s food puzzle.