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.