The Bonanza Creek (BNZ) LTER: Regional Consequences of Changing Climate-Disturbance Interactions for the Resilience of Alaska's Boreal Forest

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The Bonanza Creek (BNZ) LTER project was initiated in 1987 and since then has provided experimental and observational research designed to understand the dynamics, resilience, and vulnerability of Alaska's boreal forest ecosystems. The project has illuminated the responses of boreal forest organisms and ecosystems to climate and various atmospheric inputs, focusing on forest and landscape dynamics and biogeochemistry. This project will continue that long-term line of research, expanding it to broaden the landscape under study, broaden the predictive realm of the resulting information, and to directly address the resilience of socio-economic systems. The project hypothesizes that the past observed high resilience of boreal ecosystems to interannual and decadal changes in environmental conditions is approaching a critical tipping point. This project contributes to understanding of the structure, function, and dynamics of boreal forest ecosystems and the broader boreal landscape, including the human communities. It assembles and integrates valuable long-term data sets on climate, hydrology, biology, ecology, and biogeochemical and geomorphic processes, as incorporates emerging data types, including molecular and social science data and digital images. The project has broad societal value through its contributions to knowledge that can inform management of boreal forest ecosystems and sustainability of subsistence communities. Its broader values also include extensive research-based training and educational program development. Its strong public outreach program includes collaborations between artists and scientists and strong linkages with Native organizations.