… and discover it burned to a crisp. #fieldworkfail
Buh bye, litterbags.
Author: Samantha.Miller@nau.edu
New Postdoc Joins the Mack Lab
Rebecca Hewitt recently finished her PhD with Drs. Terry Chapin and Teresa Hollingsworth at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her dissertation investigated whether plant-fungal interactions after wildfire influenced seedling establishment at and beyond current treeline. She explored the effects of post-fire mycorrhizal community structure on the physiological performance of treeline seedlings and collaborated with the Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning to investigate the landscape implications of her plot-level studies by implementing a mycorrhizal-submodel in simulations of tree migration using the fire-vegetation-climate model ALFRESCO. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Mack Lab at Northern Arizona University she will investigate the belowground plant traits and plant-fungal interactions that confer access to nitrogen released from thawed permafrost.
Mack Lab Welcomes a Visitor
Mélanie Jean is currently visiting the Mack Lab to process moss samples for isotope analysis that she collected near Fairbanks, Alaska. Mélanie is a Ph.D. student in Jill Johnstone’s Northern Plant Ecology Lab at the University of Saskatchewan. She is studying the functional role of mosses in driving successional dynamics of boreal forests.
Undergrads in the New Lab
We have been fortunate to find a great group of undergrads to work in the new lab at NAU. They have been working diligently on processing foliar samples collected in Alaska during Summer 2014.
Picture below: Nell Smith and Vincent Ramirez work on grinding foliar samples.
Grace celebrates 10 years in the lab!
Grace Crummer recently celebrated her 10 year anniversary working as a senior chemist in the Mack and Schuur Labs. Thank you for your hard work and dedication, Grace!
Field Season 2014
Field Season 2014 has come to an end. It was a busy but successful summer in Alaska for the Mack Lab.
In our stands of black spruce and Alaska paper birch, we continued to monitor soil temperature, leaf litter inputs, soil N and P pools, and rates of litter decomposition.
We sampled forested areas that have been thinned to provide a shaded fuel break in the event of a wildfire. This information will be used with data collected in 2012 to quantify the impacts of forest management on carbon cycling, permafrost thaw, and plant succession post-management.
We installed soil temperature sensors in the soil profile to a depth of 1.5 m in areas recently burned and adjacent controls to quantify changes in permafrost following wildfire.
Simon McClung also harvested 10 year old tree seedlings from several sites in Interior Alaska to measure biomass and nutrient allocation.
Congratulations, Camila!
Camila Pizano, a postdoctoral associate in the Mack Lab, recently accepted a position as adjunct researcher in charge of the scientific component of a national project on tropical dry forest at the Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt in Bogota, Colombia. Congratulations, Camila!
Undergraduate Awarded Research Fellowship
Michelle Danielson was awarded an HHMI Science for Life fellowship to conduct a research project in the Mack Lab.
Student Artwork Featured at Harn Museum of Art
This semester Camila Pizano taught a Scientific Illustration course. Student artwork was featured in a special exhibit celebrating Earth Day at the Harn Museum of Art.
2013 Bonanza Creek LTER Symposium
Michelle Mack and April Melvin recently attended the 2013 Bonanza Creek LTER Symposium held in Fairbanks, Alaska. April presented a talk entitled: “Identifying Indicators of State Change and Forecasting Future Vulnerability in Alaskan Boreal Forest.“