LTER: Alaska's Changing Boreal Forest: Resilience and Vulnerability

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The Bonanza Creek LTER (BNZ) focuses on improving our understanding of the long-term consequences of changing climate and disturbance regimes in the Alaskan boreal forest by examining the underlying mechanisms that drive ecosystem resilience and vulnerability toward change. The overall objective is to document the major controls over forest dynamics, biogeochemistry and disturbance and their interactions in the face of a changing climate. Research seeks to identify factors that buffer systems from radical changes in structure and functioning (resilience) vs. factors that might precipitate changes to alternative states (vulnerability), and is organized into three themes: forest dynamics, biogeochemistry and landscape dynamics. In this funding cycle, BNZ research will make a more direct connection to long-term monitoring data and the PIs have added several new program elements. The research design combines long-term observations and experiments with process studies to identify ecological changes and document controls over ecosystem processes in two types of successional sequences, floodplain primary succession and upland post-fire secondary succession, over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Hypotheses about controls over ecosystem dynamics are tested by manipulating selected interactive controls extended to larger spatial scales in a hierarchical research design, using extensive measurements, remote sensing, and modeling over a broad spectrum of temporal scales. Broader Impacts. BNZ research has broad societal implications through the understanding of impacts of climate change, disturbance, human activities and exotic species on boreal forest ecosystem services such as climate regulation, recreation, aesthetics and forest resource availability. BNZ outreach and educational components are generally very strong and effective and have numerous connections to state and federal resource management agencies. The BNZ Schoolyard LTER program has been very successful and has partnered with two other science education programs to train science teachers in 38 Alaskan towns. This has involved engaging largely under-represented students who have initiated their own long-term ecological research projects and developed their own web sites. A very creative phenology unit was developed that involves K-12 students in ground validation measurements of remotely sensed data, a first such opportunity for many children in rural Alaskan communities. This activity has now been incorporated into the GLOBE Teachers Guide and is used internationally. BNZ research provides training for undergraduate and graduate students and is connected with an innovative and exciting IGERT project. BNZ public outreach to the general public is via diverse media publicity, with participants working closely with local and regional groups concerned with sustainable forestry and Native Alaskans. The BNZ site and associated researchers have an excellent track record of research and publications with data made available and useful to a broader community through information management emphasizing secure archival of collected data, promotion of its use in synthesis, and development of web-based databases to facilitate its use by the scientific community.