Swiss team visits AFES forest reference stands

On Sept. 2, Glenn Juday led a field trip to AFES’ long-term forest reference stands in Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest for Professor Markus Stoffel and staff of the Swiss Tree Ring Dendrolab. The lab is part of the Institute for Environmental Sciences at the University of Geneva. Stoffel was on a trip across Alaska with his local research colleague Benjamin Gaglioti, research assistant professor at the UAF Water and Environmental Research Center.
 
The Swiss lab specializes in the application of tree ring information to geomorphology, climatology, ecology, archaeology and natural hazard assessment — especially gathering evidence to predict snow avalanche hazards in the Swiss Alps. The visiting University of Geneva Dendrolab group included Ph.D. student Mattias Coullie, and scientific collaborator Sébastien Guillet.

Juday prepared a series of field trip guides to each of the six forest reference stands in the experimental forest, and has been handing them out to 2023 season visitors to get feedback and evaluate their effectiveness. The guides are highly visual and are made up of color illustrations of graphs, air photos, historical photos, times series photos and key data series.

 

The Sept. 2 Bonanza Creek field trip's first stop was at Parks Loop South (200+ year-old white spruce stand), where the visiting team was delighted to learn about the interaction of climate, tree growth, spruce seed crops, squirrel populations, canopy ecosystems, insect outbreaks, and tree death and recruitment. After the rain stopped, the group managed to drive on the muddy Bonanza Creek Road and visit two stands burned in the 1983 Rosie Creek Fire – Reserve West (white spruce) and Burned Birch Control.

 

The measurements and monitoring in the AFES reference stands at Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest have been used in some national international research collaborations and syntheses, and the Swiss visitors may become part of another one.