Researchers Using Peat Beds to Understand Climate Change

 

Derek Turner examines a bit of ash from Silver Creek, photo by Riley Gibson

Up and down Silver Creek, a ten kilometre long creek bed in the southwest corner of the Yukon, Derek Turner searches for evidence of previous glaciations.

 

While most studies agree there have been at least three different edges or extents of glacial coverage of the Yukon, there are theories that the glacial coverage was not all that neat and tidy. Some boundaries mask multiple glaciations some of which are smaller, covering parts of the Yukon at different times.

Part of Turner’s work, as a PhD student at Simon Fraser University, is to confirm when glaciations happened.

Derek Turner does his research within reach of the Kluane Lake Research Station, run by the Arctic Institute of North America.

He uses the Station as a base camp from which to hike out to different spots on the creek. Riley Gibson, his assistant, and a local geologist from Whitehorse, hikes out with him. They are gone all day, sometimes days at a time, climbing mountains and cliffs.

Turner and Gibson look for preserved sediments in the strata of old sediment on the edge of Silver Creek.

Beringia – that large area of unglaciated northern Yukon, and parts of Siberia – helped preserve its own regional plant, animal, even insect history in permafrost, freezing and preserving peat beds from thousands of years ago.

“Those peat beds can tell us a lot. They preserve plant life, ants, beetles, everything you’d find on a forest floor – a forest floor from 130,000 years ago.”

Knowing what was around during that time period – before and after a glaciation – helps researchers understand the warming cycles in between.

Read the rest of the article HERE

Northern Grasses “Punch Above their Weight”

 

Jennie McLaren at her site at Kluane Lake.

High on the side of a hill overlooking Christmas Bay on Kluane Lake, Jennie McLaren enters her office. It is a plot of land surrounded by electrical fence to keep away wandering horses or straying bison. The views are stunning – both the overlook towards Kluane Lake and Kluane National Park in the distance and the view from a metre above tiny sections of her plot, where she observes how plants in a northern landscape interact.

 

We duck inside the electrical fence, and walk around square experimental patches where McLaren, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, has been systematically removing one of three kinds of plants and measuring the results. Mosquitoes are everywhere but McLaren doesn’t seem to notice as she bends down to show us her work.

Read the Rest of this article HERE.

Bringing Star Wars to the Research Station: Part 1

Part I:  A New Thought

“And now you will witness the full power of this        

         station….” General Tarkington, Star Wars: Episode   

         IV, A New Hope

 

 

Bronwyn Goodwin with her X-Wing Fighter Kite

As a science fiction writer embedded now as a science writer at a northern research station, I thought my job was pretty clear: bring northern science to a larger audience through whatever means were at my disposal.  Blogs, Facebook, press releases, radio series.  But then I found out that a few people there had not seen Star Wars.   Suddenly, my best, natural personality came to the fore.  I had a new mission: Bring science fiction to scientists.

 

While science fiction might be easily dismissed by those working in scientific fields, it is often the first place that the average person learns about scientific concepts like graviton waves, geodesic folds, Dyson spheres, and quantum mechanics.  It can also be a first introduction to Shakespeare, to history, to world cultures, and to understanding the alien—those different than us.  But it is also a huge asset when it comes to igniting the imagination about science and about the future.  In this way, fiction about science, or even science writing, aids the cause of science—by compelling the average person to both think about science now, and think about science as part of our future.

Star Wars: a New Hope was aptly named.   In 1977, it transformed the movie industry, making possible special effects that matched our imaginations.  And it also introduced science fiction to the masses of non-science fiction readers—making science fiction mainstream.  Star Wars was nominated for 10 academy awards, and won six of them, including Best Musical Score.  Of course, everyone reading this knows this.  We grew up with Star Wars.

But Bronwyn Goodwin, age 8, did not, and neither did her mother, Sian Goodwin, both raised at a Research Station.

This is hardly to their disadvantage—imagine having brilliant scientists traipsing through your living room on their way to amazing science exploits, and having your dad be the pilot that takes them up to many of the highest peaks in North America.  But they missed what turned out to be a seminal cultural event in Western Culture.  Star Wars entered into our collective psyche in the eighties and has re-emerged in many forms—whether it’s Reagan’s Star Wars defense system, or the idea of being “turned to the dark side” as a reference for negative behavior.  The characters are well known to us—Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2. 

But there was a certain glee in bringing Star Wars to two people who had never been exposed to it.  And eventually, the audience at the research station grew…

Researcher at Kluane Lake helps First Nation relocate ground squirrels

 

 

Scott Donker, moving Ground Squirrels to their New Homes

Scientist helps First Nation community 

relocate Arctic ground squirrels  

KLUANE LAKE RESEARCH STATION, YT – Scott Donker, a graduate student in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia, is finding a new role as a scientist: science consultant for a First Nations community in the Yukon.  

He is one of the latest researchers to conduct studies on Arctic ground squirrels in Kluane National Park. While doing his research based at the Kluane Lake Research Station, part of the Arctic Institute of North America, Donker was approached by Kluane First Nation (KFN) to offer advice and help in relocating ground squirrels. 

“The Kluane First Nation came to me and asked me to help move Arctic ground squirrels from somewhere where people, quite frankly, consider them pests to the Duke Meadows, a traditional ground squirrel hunting area where the KFN have been harvesting gophers for hundreds of years, both for food and for fur,” says Donker. 

Populations of ground squirrels in traditional hunting areas had declined so much that Kluane First Nation needed the help of a researcher—especially for his skills in trapping, releasing and monitoring ground squirrel populations.    

“I was working with Sam White, Lands Technician and member of the Kluane First Nation,” Donker explains, “and he came out with me. My role ideally was to train him how to trap and mark and release these animals so that the project eventually would be entirely community led.” 

In the north, the working relationship between scientists and First Nations communities hasn’t always been a comfortable one. Researchers have come up and conducted science on animal populations, sending results back to their institutions or other governmental agencies. But more and more scientists are working with communities and are being asked for relevant, practical assistance.  

“It’s the direction that science needs to go now,” Donker says. “Involving the community and using science as a tool to address relevant management concerns and issues with wildlife populations should be, in my mind, number one for wildlife biologists. Conducting science for science still has its role but – we need to start using the knowledge that we’ve accumulated over hundreds of years and start applying it. I think scientists and members of the community will find it benefits both sides.” 

In Donker’s estimation of the benefits, he says researchers learn to communicate their results back to the local community, and they get valuable feedback from the community on whether the project has relevance to the community and whether the research they are conducting is successful. 

It’s hard to assess the success of the KFN ground squirrel relocation project just yet, though both the researchers and the community are dedicated to making it work. After all, it has great importance to the community’s culture.  

“Moving a wildlife species from where it was born to a completely foreign area can be risky.  We’re not sure what will happen. This year we went back to trap and see if we could catch anyone that we had relocated the previous season and we caught one. So at least one guy stuck around.” 

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This media release is part of the Promotion of Arctic Science, an Arctic Institute of North America project made possible with the generous support of the Government of Canada Program for International Polar Year.