Team Shrub

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 investigate climate change impacts in the Arctic and beyond. Tundra ecosystems that store frozen soil carbon 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. However, we don’t yet know 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!