Busy summer for Forest Soils Lab

The Forest Soils Lab had a successful summer of fieldwork in the boreal forest.

The team installed three new sites to monitor the spruce bark beetle outbreak near Cantwell and Denali National Park. This project is in partnership with Ahtna, the Alaska Division of Forestry, and the Geophysical Institute. Helene Thomas and Leo Ahlers collected weekly plant physiological data to monitor tree decline after they were infested.

Matt Robertson developed, constructed, deployed, and monitored the field installation, in addition to conducting weekly unmanned aerial vehicle flights to observe the physiological changes from a remote sensing perspective.

Jessie Young-Robertson, Sam Dempster and newest employee Nathaniel Bolter conducted weekly measurements at Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed to monitor forest physiology, stress responses and growth. There are 10 long-term monitoring sites at the research watershed, including areas where permafrost is degrading and deciduous woody plants are moving in.

A long-term monitoring site was installed at an aspen stand at Bonanza Creek LTER, where half the trees were sprayed with a pesticide to reduce the impact of the aspen leaf miner and the other half were left to experience the full impact. Researchers conducted weekly measurements to monitor the impacts of the aspen leaf miner on tree growth, water use, and physiology. This work is in partnership with Diane Wagner.

The lab also established a research site with Jan Dawe and OneTree Alaska in a birch stand off Farmers Loop Road to provide sap collectors with information about real-time sap flow in the spring.

The Soils Lab recently purchased a lidar to use with the UAV and multispectral camera to monitor forest growth, stand properties, and physiology from the air. This will help the team scale measurements to larger areas and better interpret remote sensing data with on-the-ground plant physiology measurements.

Bolter will be getting his master's degree in Natural Resource Management, in addition to being a research technician on the dendrochronology project (in partnership with Glenn Juday). Bolter attended the University of Arizona tree ring course in June to learn the basics of dendrochronology and visited Dr. Greg Goldsmith at Chapman University in August to learn how to measure wood anatomical features (to relate dendrochronology to other physiology measurements). We are excited to have Nathaniel join the lab!

The entire lab took the Alaska Soil Geography course this summer, with Jessie teaching the plant ecology portion. The team collected samples, brainstormed research ideas, and dug soil pits and learned about soils and permafrost.

Young-Robertson also presented a talk on her wood harvesting project at the Alaska-Canada Wood Energy Conference in early October.