Biocomplexity associated with biogeochemical cycles in arctic frost-boil ecosystems

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The central goal of this project is to understand the complex linkages between biogeochemical cycles, vegetation, disturbance, and climate across the full summer temperature gradient in the Arctic in order to better predict ecosystem responses to changing climate. The project focuses on frost-boils because: (1) The processes that are involved in the self-organization of these landforms drive biogeochemical cycling and vegetation succession of extensive arctic ecosystems. (2) These ecosystems contain perhaps the most diverse and ecologically important zonal ecosystems in the Arctic and are important to global carbon budgets. (3) The complex ecological relationships between patterned-ground formation, biogeochemical cycles, and vegetation and the significance of these relationships at multiple scales have not been studied. (4) The responses of the system to changes in temperature are likely to be nonlinear, but can be understood and modeled by examining the relative strengths of feedbacks between the components of the system at several sites along the natural arctic temperature gradient.