Team Shrub

Team Shrub is the research group of Prof. Isla Myers-Smith at the University of British Columbia and honorary Prof. at the University of Edinburgh.

We are ecologists working to understand how global change alters plant communities and ecosystem processes. We work at focal research sites in Northern Canada and conduct data syntheses at tundra biome and global scales.

We’re excited to announce that Team Shrub will be working on two exciting research projects the eight-year Canada Excellence Research Chair on the Climate Change Ecology of Northern Ecosystems and the five-year European Research Council-funded RESILIENCE Synergy Grant.

The aim of the CERC research chair is to capture the transformation of tundra and boreal forest ecosystems in response to warming temperatures and shifting seasonality. Team Shrub will lead a team based in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia and in association with northern partners working across the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

The aim of the ERC RESILIENCE project is to advance our understanding and predictions of tipping and critical transitions in ecosystems and reveal how these can be evaded and even reversed through spatial pattern formation. Team Shrub will be working on the tundra ecology part of this project.

If you are interested in postdoc, PhD or MSc opportunities, check out our opportunities page.

We investigate climate change impacts in the Arctic and beyond. Tundra ecosystems are responding to rapid climate warming. Vegetation change influences nutrient cycling, carbon storage and the reflectance of energy at high latitudes, thus creating feedbacks that could affect the planet as a whole. Vegetation change also influences habitat for wildlife and the livelihoods of Arctic people. Yet, many questions remain about the causes and consequences of tundra vegetation and biodiversity change.

Our research group is addressing these major knowledge gaps to better understand the changing Arctic. As Ecological Data Scientists, we use a variety of tools including data synthesis, ecological monitoring, drones, traits, decomposition experiments using tea bags, and more. We also collaborate with researchers working across the circumpolar Arctic and around the world to understand the drivers and impacts of global change.

This photo comparison illustrates the type of vegetation change that we are observing at many sites around the Arctic and that we are quantifying using cross-site data syntheses, drone imagery and comparisons with satellite greening trends.

Repeat photography of shrubification from 1989 to 2019 on Qikiqtaruk along the Yukon Arctic coast.

In 2019, we were back to the Arctic to investigate the greening of the Arctic and the tundra’s hidden biodiversity. For more on our field adventures you can check out our blog!