Overall global fire emissions for December and for the whole year were the lowest of the past 23 years of the #CopernicusAtmosphere Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) v1.2 dataset, based on Terra and Aqua MODIS🛰️active fire observations.
This NYT-profiled exhibit by the arts/humanities/sciences collaboration In a Time of Change is currently at the Univ. of Alaska Museum of the North. It will soon travel to Oregon State Univ.'s PRAx and Michigan State Univ.'s (SCENE) Metrospace. Check it out!
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/a...
The times, they are a-thawin' (and a-sinkin'): study of permafrost changes on the Tanana Flats near Fairbanks.
tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/...
A researcher stands in a forest and writes data on a clipboard.
Bonanza Creek LTER is seeking a post-doctoral fellow! The position focuses on synthesizing long-term ecological data to study alternate successional trajectories in the boreal forest and explore their implications in a changing climate. Find out more and apply at careers.alaska.edu/jobs/post-do...
Overwintering ‘zombie fires’ aren’t doing what we thought they’d do
A major new study of NWT wildfires that smoulder through the winter surprised the scientists involved and has some lessons for the territory's firefighters.
Research by Bonanza Creek LTER's Grant Falvo is highlighted in Ned Rozell's recent article about wintertime soil microbe activity.
www.uaf.edu/news/norther...
Snow in shadows and light covers the ground beneath spruce trees in front of a distant ridge.
Love that sunshine! The length of day in Fairbanks is now 10 hours 28 minutes, and we're gaining nearly 7 minutes each day.
📷Black spruce and sun dappled snow at Caribou - Poker Creeks Research Watershed. Bonanza Creek LTER photo by Craig McCaa.
Photo of a very beautiful bog.
Help restore my faith in the world. Who loves a good bog? Make yourselves known! For bogs are - time keepers, death defiers, artifact protectors, carbon trappers, water purifiers, food providers, beautiful mysterious places
Check out our recent blog post on tree seed germination under climate change, where we share insights from our current research. #SeedScience #ClimateChange 😴❄️🌱
www.kew.org/read-and-wat...
Ice rich permafrost cores thawing in the lab. Imagine this happening slowly as permafrost thaws with climate change or disturbance and what this means for insfrastructure built above! (This was my most popular post on the bad place, let’s make it so here too!) #cdnsci #geoscience #cryosphere
Figure 1. Map of study sites in the Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed (CPCRW). Darker shading denotes estimated permafrost extent (<4 to 54%). Sampling locations for sites C1-C4 are at the outlet of each catchment. Inset shows the location of the CPCRW in Alaska.
Figure 4. Metabolism and stream chemistry vary with permafrost extent. Center lines, boxes, whiskers, and points indicate the median, interquartile range (IQR), 1.5 × IQR, and outliers (n = 57–119 per site per year). ER = Ecosystem Respiration, GPP = Gross Primary Production, SUVA254 = specific ultraviolet absorbance at 254nm scaled by DOC, DOC = dissolved organic carbon.
Figure 5. Carbon (C) and phosphorus (P) co-limit respiration in laboratory incubations. Center lines, boxes, whiskers, and points indicate the median, interquartile range (IQR), 1.5 × IQR, and outliers of O2 demand (μmol O2 L−1 h−1) across all sites.
New(ish) paper to share with all the new & familiar folks on Bluesky (I'm glad you're all here!):
Iannucci et al. #Temperature and #Flow Control Organic #Carbon #Metabolism in #Boreal Headwater #Streams agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
💧🌎🧪👩🔬 #JGRB #AGU #MacroCO2 #BonanzaCreek #LTER
Love writing about science? Now accepting applications for our LTER Graduate Writing Fellows!
Students write stories about LTER research, and get tons of support from the Network Office.
Develop comms skills that aren't offered in a grad program!
Apps close Nov 31.
lternet.edu/stories/love...
This week Bonanza Creek LTER is helping host the annual meeting of the Long Term Ecological Research Network's Science Council, a gathering of scientists from research sites around the nation.
Pink, white, and yellow flowers in bloom
A sign that summer is ramping up in Interior Alaska: Calypso bulbosa in bloom in the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest near Fairbanks.
Fresh snow covers recently emerged leaves on a birch tree.
A plot shows green-up dates from 1976 through 2024. Most years green-up occurs during the first three weeks of May.
Green-up turns white: Bonanza Creek LTER recorded this year’s green-up date in Fairbanks as May 2. Since 1976 researchers have recorded green-up when a hillside of birch and aspen trees near the Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks shows a faint green flush. Today the new foliage hides under fresh snow!
New in Nature - a phylogeny of over 10,000 species (all families, 58% of genera) inferred using Angiosperms353!
We've been calling this the "Big Tree" paper for years and I'm glad to see it in print - fantastic work by the Kew PAFTOL team and many others!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Looking for advice communicating science across multiple media types?
Kelso Harper, multimedia specialist for Scientific American, presents the next LTER visual Media Series webinar on April 19th at 9am PT. Should be an awesome event!
Register here: lternet.edu/events/lter-...
Booklet cover shows a closeup view of lowbush cranberry plants and red berries.
Latest booklet from Alaska Berries Futures: Lowbush Cranberry in a Changing Climate. Download at sites.google.com/alaska.edu/a...
A round dish of seeds includes some with green sprouts.
Testing germination rates of seeds collected last summer at long-term monitoring sites: a little greenery in the lab while it remains white outside! These alder seeds are about halfway through the two-week test. Our site with the longest data record was first sampled in 1957!
Wow, what a great paper. Last week I was just teaching about how climate change may shift the temperate/boreal ecotone Eastward (in principle), so this will be a fantastic data paper to pass on and draw from in the future.
A group of students receive instruction from a scientist on a hillside overlooking a forest.
Fostering Science provides free science camps and educational outdoor adventures for Alaskan foster youth. Mentorship with Alaska Native Elders, Indigenous educators, and scientists helps campers grow and explore their curiosities. Want to help? Today is #UAGivingDay: donate at bit.ly/fspsgd24
Spruce bark beetle numbers in boreal forests are driven by volume mature spruce, extent of newly exposed clearcut edges, temperature, and soil moisture 🪲
A model with a 3-year time lag allows spatial prediction of future beetle numbers 📊
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...
A collage of four photographs shows researchers measuring vegetation in the boreal forest.
Bonanza Creek LTER is seeking three field assistants for this summer! Visit beautiful parts of Alaska and learn to identify Alaskan plants, mosses, and lichens. Jobs are full-time for the summer, $16+/hr depending on experience. Contact mackwalkerlab@gmail.com for more info; apply by March 8.
Alaska's beaver population is expanding its range from the boreal forest into the Arctic. Learn more about the ecological and cultural implications of this expansion at a Feb. 26-28 meeting of the Arctic Beaver Observation Network at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Each hurricane in New England wipes out ~10 yrs of forest carbon sequestration. If hurricanes become more frequent and/or intense here, the forests' ability to serve as carbon sinks may be at risk. Thx @josephtumber.bsky.social 4 vital @uslter.bsky.social work! northernwoodlands.org/discoveries/...
Eugénie Euskirchen's team studied net release of carbon dioxide and methane from 2011-2022 at the Alaska Peatland Experiment near Fairbanks. Four sites with varied permafrost regimes all acted as slight annual sources of carbon dioxide and stronger sources of methane.
doi.org/10.1111/gcb....
