New Leaf Final Fantastic Friday Nov 30: Characterizing the Biogeochemical Impacts of Wildfires on Arctic Tundra Ecosystems

[Savvy Cornett]

On Friday Nov 30, for the final Fantastic Friday of the semester, current Hampshire students, Natalie Baillargeon and Rhys MacArthur, present Characterizing the Biogeochemical Impacts of Wildfires on Arctic Tundra Ecosystems.

Abstract: In the wake of a changing and warming climate, the Arctic is experiencing the most dynamic increase of average surface temperature globally, which is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of wildfires in the region. Wildfires are changing the biogeochemical functions of the Arctic ecosystem; however, this change is not fully understood. This summer, Natalie Baillargeon and Rhys MacArthur traveled to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, a region that has experienced wildfires in 2015 and 1972. There, they had the opportunity to investigate the impacts of wildfires on the composition of aboveground biomass, plant stoichiometry, and nitrogen cycling.

Natalie Baillargeon, a second-year at Hampshire, studies environmental science with application to public policy and economics. Her research is investigating the impacts of wildfires, specifically on plant stoichiometry and nitrogen cycling, in the Arctic. Wildfires are expected to increase in frequency and severity due to global climate change and are changing the biogeochemical functions of the Arctic ecosystem; however, these changes are not fully understood. 

Rhys MacArthur is currently in her last semester of Division II at Hampshire College where she studies Ecology and Environmental Justice. Her research is focused around the effects wildfires have on the above-ground biomass of arctic tundra ecosystems and the ecological processes that drive vegetation composition. Vegetation plays a key role in the carbon feedback loop set off by thawing arctic permafrost and the frequency of arctic wildfires is expected to increase as global climate change continues. However, very little is currently understood by the scientific community about how fire changes arctic vegetation, thus changing the ability of the landscape to sequester carbon.
Savvy Cornett😈
They/Them

sent from a college account I may or may not have acquired from mythical dragons that live in the attic 

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