It’s Tundra Time (From the Vault)

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As we begin the 2023 field season, we thought we’d look back on our 2022 field season to catch you up to speed on what we’re up to. Last year, Team Shrub was split between two sites in the Yukon, Kluane Lake and Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island, and had one team member all the way over and up on Svalbard! This year we’re split again between Qikiqtaruk and Kluane in the Yukon and Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland. Across time zones and continents we’re capturing how tundra ecosystems are responding as the climate warms. Now that we are back in the field – it’s tundra time!

The 2022 Team Shrub field research crew on Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island in the Canadian Arctic having the time of our lives! Photos by Isla Myers-Smith with photoshop magic by Malkolm Boothroyd

In 2022, we launched fieldwork for the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC)-funded TundraTime project. The TundraTime project aims to test how plant phenology – the timing of plant growth both above and below ground – is responding as the tundra warms. In the 2023, let’s reflect on what we got up to last year to inform what we are working on this year. [And if you are interested, we’re hiring a postdoc to work on this project based in Edinburgh, apply by the 28th of August here.]

Out on the tundra, growing seasons are short and the tundra comes to life as the snow melts and the temperatures warm. An amazing photo of a red fox among the flowers (left). Close-up of moss campion flowers (top right) and pedicularis flowers (bottom right). Photos by Isla Myers-Smith

It isn’t just the plants that are responding as the climate warms, permafrost is thawing and in 2022 and 2023 were tracking that change using drones and boots on the ground with our collaborators. Photos by Isla Myers-Smith

The Arctic is warming four times more and four times faster than the rest of the planet, leading to earlier snow melt and sea ice break-up and an earlier green-up of plants in tundra ecosystems. But what happens at the end of the season both above and below ground? Do plants grow for longer, and turn colour earlier in warmer summers or do they not really change the timing of when they stop growing as winter approaches? And what will the timing of plant growth mean for the tundra carbon cycle? These are the main questions of the Tundra Time project.

Here are the hypotheses that we are testing in the Tundra Time project. Will longer ice- and snow-free seasons lead to longer growing seasons, earlier growing seasons and/or asynchronous productivity above and below ground? That’s what we’re aiming to find out!

We think tundra plants cue in tightly to snow melt and temperatures at the beginning of the season to start their growth, but at the end of the season, light is likely a more important cue. In our preliminary analyses, tundra plants stop growing at the same time or a bit earlier in warmer summers. But that is just the story above ground. Below-ground tundra plant roots might grow for longer into the now more thawed permafrost soils. In the TundraTime project we’re digging in to find out.

We’ve been stabbing the tundra with these TOMST temperature and soil moisture loggers to capture microclimates across the tundra. Video by Isla Myers-Smith

Led by Prof. Isla Myers-Smith (aka Isla), the field crew is working on a range of different research topics that all contribute to answering these questions. We’ll fill you in on all of those projects below. The theme that links all our projects together is, indeed, time. How do plants grow in a warmer Arctic and what does this mean for carbon cycling and wildlife? Our crew is on it!

Finally! The successful download of phenocam 12 on attempt three or was it four? Photo by Isla Myers-Smith

Time is central to all aspects of Elise’s PhD project. Last summer, we set up time-lapse cameras (aka phenocams) across the tundra to capture the timing of plant phenology across vegetation communities and microclimate gradients. The cameras take a photo every three hours across the day, tracking plant growth in real time. In 2023, we’re back to fix all of the phenocams knocked over by muskox and to download the data and figure out how the timing of tundra growth varies across microclimates and between earlier (2023) and later (2022) snow melt years.

Noooo… not again. The muskox takes down our phenocams (left) and a muskox caught on camera in a phenocam munching on some shrubs (right). Photos by Isla Myers-Smith and a phenocam

To capture the little-understood below-ground phenology of plant roots, we also buried clusters of peat cores at our sites. We’ve been remove these cores across the summer to investigate how root growth varies across time and spanning environmental gradients. Elise’s research will help us to demystify the drivers of Arctic phenology change and shine light on the cryptic world of tundra underground and the timing of root growth.

Soil cores buried and ready for winter in 2022 (left). Photo by Zabrina Leslie
Cores being removed from the ground in 2023 (right). Photo by Isla Myers-Smith

Madi’s PhD project aims to discover how changing plant phenology influences our ability to sense the biodiversity of tundra ecosystems. Hyperspectral signatures capture light beyond the human eye. We can use this information to figure out the health status of plants, leaf nutrient levels, and maybe even the biodiversity of ecosystems.

Madi and Clara capturing hyperspectral images of tundra vegetation. Photo by Isla Myers-Smith

Across the summer, the reflectance patterns of plants changes – bright green leaves in spring, yellow senescing leaves in fall, and multicoloured flowers across the summer. But how are hyperspectral signatures influenced by the timing of plant growth? One day this information might help us interpret the data from future hyperspectral satellites monitoring the world’s biodiversity from space.

Scanning leaves to measure plant traits (left) and scanning leaves to measure hyperspectral signatures (right). Photos by Isla Myers-Smith

Diana is investigating climatic drivers of shrub growth over time. Shrub expansion has been observed in response to climate change across the tundra and at treeline. However, not all regions respond equally and there is very little data on shrubs below the treeline and in boreal forests. Last summer, Diana was sampling stem disks from shrubs in the boreal forest at different sites in Canada and Finland to compare shrub growth from across the boreal forest and treeline.

Diana about to sample shrub stems in the boreal zone to look at the shrub rings. Photo by Jiri Subrt

Joe’s PhD project is exploring plant species composition and functional traits across elevational gradients and across the tundra biome. It isn’t just the change in the diversity of species that matters with climate change, we also need to know how the functions that ecosystems provide might be changing. So called ‘functional diversity’ is a metric of the different ways plants grow and capture energy and nutrients. Plants also provide services to other species like this dryas flower providing nectar in return for help with pollination from this fly.

Pollination in action on Qikiqtaruk. Video by Isla Myers-Smith

Joe is characterising the role of microclimates in driving patterns of functional diversity across tundra landscapes to understand how warming could alter functional diversity over time. By comparing fine-scale field data collected in Kluane in 2022 and on Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland in 2023 with the global-scale plant composition and trait datasets, Joe hopes to identify fine-scale functional diversity distributions hidden by the often coarse-scale data used in plant trait studies.

Point-framing from the ground up on Qikiqtaruk in the summer of 2022. Photo by Isla Myers-Smith

Calum’s PhD project is investigating the drivers of greening trends observed in satellite data across the Arctic. While satellite data supports the scientific consensus that climate change is reshaping Arctic ecosystems, the data is often too low resolution to understand exactly which aspects of ecosystems are changing. Just like a pixelated photograph, where you can’t quite see what the image represents, coarse resolution satellite imagery obscures our understanding of what is happening on the ground.

Different image resolutions of the same area on Qikiqtaruk. Can you spot the difference? We hope you can!

Calum’s work uses a sensor with characteristics identical to the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites, which is mounted to a drone and flown approx. 100m above the tundra. This gives a much higher resolution image of the landscape than satellites provide, as the sensor on Sentinel-2 is ~786km above the ground! Calum will then compare the high-resolution drone imagery with the lower-resolution satellite imagery to try and better define whether snow, vegetation, permafrost or other physical components of Arctic tundra ecosystems are driving the changes we observe from space.

Calum flying a DJI Matrice drone with the MAIA sensor over the Kluane plateau. Photo by Joseph Everest

Erica is working her master’s degree, and collected lots of data for her research last summer. She is projecting the magnitude of shrubification and and increasing shrub biomass with projected future warming in the Porcupine and Fortymile Caribou Herds between the Yukon Territory and Alaska. For her shrub change scenarios, Erica uses shrub growth rates from a ‘common garden’ experiment, based at Kluane Lake, which has been set up by Team Shrub and monitored every summer since 2013.

Erica headed off for data collection in the common garden. Photo by Jiri Subrt

The purpose of the common garden experiment is to assess the growth of different shrub species (Arctic willow – Salix arctica, Richard’s willow – Salix richardsonii and Diamond Leaf willow – Salix pulchra) from Arctic and alpine source populations, under warmer temperature conditions. Do willows grow taller in a warmer environment? How do the Arctic willows respond to the change in the light environment after they have moved 1000 km to the south? And can we use the growth rates of willows growing in this warmer environment to quantify shrubification with future warming?

A Salix pulchra willow 1000km away from its home on Qikiqtaruk growing on the shores of Kluane Lake in the boreal forest in our common garden experiment. Photo by Isla Myers-Smith

The local responses of shrub growth to environmental conditions are highly heterogeneous across Arctic-alpine ecosystems and the responses of shrub phenology to fine-scale environmental conditions remain understudied. Erica hopes to compare growth rates from the common garden experiment, with growth rates seen in shrubs in wild populations, and use these different scenarios to project shrub expansion across wildlife habitats under future warming conditions.

Caribou crossing the shrubifying tundra on Qikqitaruk on the Yukon Arctic Coast. Photo by Isla Myers-Smith

During the 2022 field season, our intrepid field assistants were Jiri Subrt, Erica Zaja, Zabrina Leslie and Clara Surprenant and our research intern was Sydney McLeod, in 2023 Else Radeloff and three interns are joining the Yukon field crew. These key members of our team have helped us at every step of the way and making core contributions to the science.  Not only did they work so hard, they also kept our spirits up with tundra dance parties, throw-back movie nights and delicious and elegant field-prepared meals. Don’t worry, we all shared the cooking, it’s just that some of our field assistants were particularly talented chefs! More reflections on the 2022 summer from the perspective of National Geographic Society STEM field assistant Zabrina are coming in a future post!

Celebrating the summer with a campfire and smores on Qikiqtaruk towards the end of the field season. Photo by Isla Myers-Smith

All the way on the other side of the Arctic, Mariana spent a good amount of her summer hunched over trying to identify tiny plants in the Svalbard archipelago. Her postdoctoral project is researching the effects of increased shrub growth on the diversity of other plant groups, particularly lichens and mosses. Armed with a point-frame and a hand lens, she has been surveying plots across glacier valleys and mountains, taking in the breathtaking views of landscapes and wildlife in between pin drops. With these data, Mariana hopes to better understand what is actually happening under the shrubs. Even though these plants are small, big changes might be occurring in this miniature world.

Mariana surveying at the top of Breinosa before the rains (left). Photo by Judith Winkler
A whole world of mosses in the understory of Salix polaris (right). Photo by Mariana García Criado

The 2022 Field Season was a big success, and we’re continuing the work as the 2023 season is already underway! Team Shrub has once again split, with a team in Canada, who have started removing soil cores, sampling plant traits and spectra and re-righting the phenocams, and another in Greenland working on collecting drone imagery and surveying plant plots. As always, there are challenges that we face and adventures underway as we conduct this tundra field research. More details on this year’s fieldwork will come once we finish posting our old blog posts ‘from the vault’… stay tuned.

Sunset on Qikiqtaruk as the darkness of winter approaches in August of 2022. Photo by Isla Myers-Smith

Team Shrub Represents at BES

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‘Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the planet,
Not a university was stirring, not even a hamlet;

The posters were hung on the poster boards with care,
In hopes that ecologists soon would be there;

The PhD students were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of statistical models danced in their heads;

‘Twas the BES Conference, at the end of the year,
This was the conference to bring ecological cheer,

What a week it was – I can tell from the posts,
And for those of us who missed it, we feel it the most,

But the ecology remains, for those that are keen,
In this humble blog post, for all to be seen.

And I hear you exclaim, ere I sit down to write —
“Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night!”

Isla adapts a classic poem

The British Ecological Society Conference has wrapped in Edinburgh and Team Shrub (if not me) was there! Here are some of the photos of the action so that you too can join from afar, if you didn’t make it to BES 2022 yourself.

Team Shrub attended BES in style this year with presentations by postdoc Mariana García Criado and PhD student Joseph Everest and former lab member Schmidt Fellow Gergana Daskalova and posters by PhD student Elise Gallois and MSc by research students Erica Zaja and Jiri Subrt. Here is a rundown of the different Team Shrub contributions, so you can catch up.

‘Plant diversity dynamics across temporal and spatial scales in a warming Arctic‘ by Mariana García Criado

Co-authors: Mariana García Criado (University of Edinburgh), Isla Myers-Smith (University of Edinburgh), Anne Bjorkman (University of Gothenburg), Sarah Elmendorf (University of Colorado Boulder), Signe Normand (Aarhus University)

The Arctic is experiencing unprecedented warming rates, and plant communities are responding through abundance, phenology and distribution shifts. However, biodiversity spatial patterns and its direction of change over time remain unquantified. Using a database with 37,452 records of vascular plant composition from 1,327 plots across four decades, we explore how multiple biodiversity axes vary across space and time. We found that Arctic species richness decreases as latitude increases, but overall species richness has not changed over time. Species trajectories were related to climate, with warmer and drier areas experiencing fewer local extinctions. Plant community abundance change was pronounced, and increasing shrub dominance corresponded with extinctions and reduced diversity. However, Arctic plant communities have not homogenized, and are more resilient when they have a diverse and even composition. Overall, our results suggest limited biodiversity change, but indicate early signs of directional biotic changes that could result in Arctic biodiversity tipping points.

‘Paws for thought: Impact of dog yards on tundra greening in Svalbard‘ by Elise Gallois

Co-authors: Elise Gallois (University of Edinburgh), Jesamine Bartlett (NINA), Kristine Bakke Westergaard (NTNU), Logan Berner (Northern Arizona University)

Dog-sledding in High Arctic Svalbard is a key tourist attraction, and pony trekking and the keeping of livestock is also in practice in the central areas of the archipelago. Animal husbandry waste disposal practises – particularly those involving the disposal of animal faeces – hugely enrich soils with excess nutrients. Here, we utilise NDVI (normalised difference vegetation index) analysis to explore the impact of both abandoned and contemporary animal husbandry on Svalbard’s tundra. We found that while peak-season greenness was increasing across all of our study sites, the greening signal was enhanced at active dog-yards and historic animal husbandry sites. Across sites, the date of tundra greening has shifted earlier, and the date of plant senescence has shifted slightly later between 1986-2021. Our results suggest an immediate positive impact of nutrient enrichment from animal husbandry on tundra productivity, and a lasting impact of nutrient enrichment at abandoned animal husbandry sites.

This poster comes with it’s own Spotify Playlist – check it out and listen along!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6Rmq52EPg3JH2JcH3r7RGb

‘Shrubification not climate is the main driver of tundra functional diversity across space and time‘ by Joseph Everest’

Co-authors: Joseph Everest (University of Edinburgh), Isla Myers-Smith (University of Edinburgh), Anne Bjorkman (University of Gothenburg), Sarah Elmendorf (University of Colorado Boulder), Mariana García Criado (University of Edinburgh)

A tundra-wide vegetation regime shift is underway in response to accelerating Arctic warming. Greening and browning, phenological shifts and functional trait change are relatively well documented, however resulting impacts on ecosystem function remain unclear. Functional diversity encompasses the range, variability and evenness of key functional traits and captures responses in tundra processes and ecosystem functions. We analysed biogeographic patterns and change over time in tundra plant functional diversity across sites over decades of change. We found that trends in species richness and its dominant drivers are not mirrored in functional diversity metrics. Instead, spatial and temporal patterns in plant functional diversity are controlled by the dominance of different functional groups within plots and the variation in key functional traits, such as plant height. Our results suggest that continued tundra compositional change (e.g., shrubification) with warming will drive changes to ecosystem functions despite slower rates of change in tundra plant biodiversity.

‘How will shrub expansion reshape caribou habitat?’ by Erica Zaja

Co-authors: Erica Zaja (University of Edinburgh), Isla Myers-Smith (University of Edinburgh), Mariana García Criado (University of Edinburgh)

The Arctic is warming three to four times faster than the global average, altering vegetation communities and the timing of lifecycle events. Shrubs are encroaching into wildlife habitats, altering forage quantity, quality, and temporal availability. I used linear models to investigate whether shrub biomass was related to summer temperature and precipitation, and linear mixed effects models to study the change in timing of shrub leaf emergence in the Porcupine Caribou Herd’s (PCH) (Rangifer tarandus granti) Alaskan summer range. I showed that shrub biomass was greater in warmer and wetter areas, and that the timing of leaf emergence advanced in one out of four sites within the range. These findings suggest that climate change might further increase shrub encroachment and advance the timing of shrub green-up within the caribou summer range. This study can inform caribou habitat conservation and contribute to the protection of Indigenous livelihoods depending on the PCH.

‘Human depopulation has stronger impacts on plant biodiversity in lowland versus mountain villages‘ by Gergana Daskalova

Co-authors: Gergana Daskalova (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA), Piero Visconti (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA), Volker Radeloff (University of Wisconsin-Madison), K. Vassilev (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), B. Genova (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), M. Nazarov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)

Rural populations around the world have nearly halved in the last century, leaving behind abandoned land with unknown consequences for biodiversity. Focusing on Bulgaria, the quickest depopulating country in the world, we quantified plant biodiversity across 120 sites and 30 villages along a human depopulation gradient. In lowland areas, depopulating villages supported higher plant richness than those with increasing human populations. In montane regions, species richness was similar across fully abandoned villages and villages with decreasing or stable human presence. We found lower species richness in villages that had been abandoned further in the past. In both lowlands and mountains, villages with stable human presence had distinct plant species composition from that of depopulating villages. The heterogeneous ecological fingerprint of human depopulation needs to be incorporated in biodiversity scenarios to capture both the benefits and threats that land abandonment poses for biodiversity.

‘Is tundra community composition change driven by increases in species with warmer thermal niches?‘ by Jiri Subrt

Co-authors: Jiri Subrt (University of Edinburgh), Isla Myers-Smith (University of Edinburgh)

Arctic is experiencing rapid warming, impacting vegetation communities. Thermophilisation, the increase of warm-loving species in response to warming was detected across the Arctic. There is heterogeneity in site-specific responses to warming and uncertainty on whether vegetation responds primarily to warming. I studied thermophilisation and vegetation changes on Qikiqtaruk Island, Canada. I analysed vegetation composition data and calculated how plant community temperatures changed from 1999 to 2019. My results indicate that plant communities exhibit a signal of vegetation cover change in response to warming and species that have increased more relative to others are not always the most thermophilic. My findings suggest that warming is likely not the only predictor of vegetation changes in tundra. My findings also highlight that vegetation responses are heterogeneous, influenced by local environmental factors, and may experience lags. This study emphasises the importance of long-term monitoring of the Arctic to predict the response of vegetation to warming.

Storytelling with Data – Data visualisation meets graphic design to tell scientific stories

Members of Team Shrub lead a Coding Club workshop on Data Visualisation. It looks like it was a very successful workshop, though the team does look exhausted by the end!

Our workshop is for anyone wanting to amplify their data visualisation skills to tell powerful scientific stories. Through individual and team activities and tutorials, we will take participants from figure conceptualisation and graphic design to the weaving of stories and the R code to make it all happen.

If you want to complete this workshop in your own time, you can follow along at the Coding Club website:

https://ourcodingclub.github.io/tutorials/dataviz-storytelling/

Team Shrub also met up with our ArcticHub colleagues Jonathan von Oppen from Aarhus University and Laura Turner from the University of Nottingham.

Team Shrub co-supervised PhD student Megan Stamp won a Tucan Print from the Royal Society publishing! Erica and Elise drew their research and are now planning on switching careers to become visual artists.

Shenanigans seem to have been had by all across the week. I wish I’d been there! Here’s to a relaxing holidays and to future conferences in 2023.

Words by Isla and photos by all of the peeps on Twitter!

Willow – Part 3 of A Trilogy

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A Canadian field season: my experience, reflections and preliminary project results

By Erica Zaja
Figure 1. Erica downloading data from a TOMST logger on the Kluane Plateau in August 2022. Picture by Calum Hoad.

This summer, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to fieldwork in the Yukon Territory (Canada) under the supervision of Prof. Isla Myers-Smith. As Team Shrub’s research assistant, my job was to help the PhD students with their projects’ data collection. The PhD students in the lab are studying a variety of topics including above and below ground plant phenology, functional diversity across elevational gradients and drivers of greening captured through satellite data.

I was delighted to be part of the field team. It was also my very first time travelling outside of Europe and seeing such incredible landscapes, colossal mountain peaks and vast lakes on Northern Canada. It was amazing to finally see the plants and landscapes that I had read about for my undergraduate dissertation project focused on Arctic vegetation dynamics. In the field, I was given the opportunity to carry out my own independent research project and collect my own data. My project was based in the common garden experiment (Figure 2, Figure 3 ; see previous blogposts Willow and Willow-a sequel), set up by Isla in 2013 by Kluane Lake (Figure 2), which was my home for the whole summer.

Figure 2. On the left: map of study sites in the Yukon Territory, Canada: Kluane Plateau (purple pin) and Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island (green pin). On the right: zoomed-in map showing Kluane Plateau (purple pin) and Common Garden site (red pin). Maps made using Google My Maps 2022.

The common garden experiment

Common garden experiments are plantings of species collected from different geographical sites and grown together under shared conditions. In Kluane, the goal of the common garden experiment is to test for genetic differentiation in growth form of tundra willows (Salix spp.) across climate and latitudinal gradients. The common garden experiment is designed to better understand the balance between genetic and environmental drivers of tundra shrubification. The underlying research question that the common garden is trying to answer is one about adaptation:

Are tundra shrubs genetically adapted to their local environment – thus limiting future vegetation change as shrubs expand their ranges northward – or do environmental factors drive the ‘plasticity’ in shrub growth?

Figure 3. The common garden experiment from above and Kluane Lake in the background. Picture by Iain Myers-Smith.

In particular, the purpose of the experiment is to assess the growth of three different widespread tundra willow species: Arctic willow – Salix arctica (Pall.), Diamond Leaf willow – Salix pulchra (Cham.) and Richard’s willow – Salix richardsonii (Hook.) (Figure 4) from Arctic and alpine source populations, under warmer temperature conditions. From 2013 – 2017, Arctic shrubs from Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island (70°N) and alpine shrubs from the Kluane Plateau (61°N) – referred to as source populations – were transplanted into the warmer, common environment of the garden within the boreal forest. The boreal forest site, where the common garden is located, has an average summer temperature of 14°C, which is approximately 3-5°C warmer than the source population sites with summer temperatures ranging from 0°C to 12°C (Figure 5).

Figure 4a. Salix arctica on Kluane Plateau by Jiri Subrt.
Figure 4b. Salix pulchra in the common garden by Erica Zaja.
Figure 4c. Salix richardsonii on Kluane Plateau by Jiri Subrt.
Figure 5. Daily mean surface (a) and soil (b) temperature (°C) for the three sites over the 2022 summer season (June-July-August) showing differences in temperatures. Common garden in orange, Kluane Plateau in purple and Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island in green. Data from TOMST loggers that I installed and collected from the end of the summer 2022 field season.

Project aims and data collection

The common garden experiment has been ongoing since 2013, with shrub growth and phenology monitoring happening every summer season for nine years as of this summer. My project’s aim was to continue the long-term monitoring of the common garden and to collect data from shrubs in alpine and Arctic source populations to compare to growth in the garden. Comparing the growth of shrubs in the common garden with the growth of shrubs in their respective source populations enables us to understand how the different shrub species respond when moved to a warmer environment. This comparison is allowing us to infer whether shrubs are showing strong genetic differentiation or whether they are responding to the local environmental conditions, with important implications for future climate-driven vegetation change.

Over the summer, I went to the common garden on a weekly basis and collected growth measurements including canopy height (cm), shrub width (cm), leaf length (mm) and stem elongation (mm). I also recorded shrub phenology – timing of lifecycle events including timing of green up, yellowing of leaves, leaf shed and full senescence. To sample the growth of shrubs from the alpine source population I hiked up the steep trail of the Kluane Plateau and tagged individuals of the three target Salix species, collecting growth measurements on a weekly basis as well. The round trip on the mountain was ~13km and a 1000m elevation gain – which on a weekly basis (and 16 times in total over summer) was a great fitness workout! Finally, to sample the growth and monitor phenology of shrubs from the Arctic source population I designed a protocol for the other half of Team Shrub to follow to collect data on Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island. At the end of the summer, I also downloaded the phenology pictures taken by time-lapse cameras over winter and summer 2022 and the environmental data (soil moisture and soil, air and surface temperature) recorded by TOMST loggers (Figure 6).

Figure 6. TOMST logger surrounded by Salix arctica by the peak of the Kluane Plateau. Picture by Calum Hoad.

Preliminary results

Now, I am back in Edinburgh and I am working on data wrangling, data analysis and writing of main findings. I have been adding the data that I collected this summer to the long-term nine-year monitoring dataset of the common garden. So far, through these analyses we have found that:

  • Growth traits including canopy height, leaf length and annual stem elongation show strong plastic responses to warming for the tall willows (Salix pulchra and Salix richardsonii), but not for dwarf willow Salix arctica (Figure 7).
  • Willows from Kluane (southern population) show greater trait changes (canopy height change, leaf length and stem elongation increase) than willows from Qikiqtaruk (northern population) under warmer conditions (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Canopy height (a), leaf length (b) and annual stem elongation (c) differ between alpine (purple) and Arctic (green) shrubs in the common garden over nine years. Lines are generalised linear mixed models and 95% confidence intervals. Colours indicate different shrub source populations: purple for Kluane and green for Qikiqtaruk (Sample size = 260 individuals).

When comparing data from the common garden with source population data, we find that:

  • Shrubs at source populations are taller and have larger leaves than Salix pulchra and Salix richardsonii – but not Salix arctica – in the common garden (Figure 8).
  • There is no difference between stem elongation values in the common garden and in source populations for any of the target shrub species (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Differences in canopy height (a), leaf length (b), stem elongation (c) between alpine (purple) and Arctic (green) shrubs in the common garden, compared to data from source populations. Kluane source population in faded purple and Qikiqtaruk source population in faded green. Boxplot showing mean values from data I collected over summer 2022 (Sample size = 127 individuals).

Implications of findings

Overall, preliminary findings indicate that tundra shrubs grow rapidly under warmer conditions, but alpine shrubs (southern population) respond at a faster pace than Arctic shrubs (northern population). These findings suggest that there might be strong genetic differences between populations that constrain trait changes as response to warming, although willows do demonstrate high plasticity potential to warmer growing conditions. In summary, these preliminary results suggest that local adaptation may constrain tundra shrub growth responses to future warming, especially at northern sites, and that we should expect rapid – but not uniform – shrub encroachment with future warming across the tundra.

Next steps

  • Explore maternal effects to understand differences in canopy heights. Do taller parent shrubs (shrubs from source populations from which cuttings were taken and transplanted to the common garden) produce taller offspring in the common garden?
  • Process phenocam pictures and compare timing of different phenophases between common garden and source populations. Do northern willows senesce earlier than southern willows, being adapted to a shorter growing season?
  • Explore environmental drivers of shrub growth and phenology. Do warmer temperatures and wetter conditions favour shrub growth and alter the timing of phenophases?

What this field season has taught me

This summer has taught me really important scientific skills and lessons that I will benefit from throughout my career. Meeting First Nations Peoples and communities and learning about their lands, plants, wildlife and culture was the highlight of my summer. I learnt how to identify many of the native plant species of the region, I practiced field sampling techniques and I met interesting researchers working on a variety of different topics from glaciology to pika habitat conservation. Having the opportunity to spend so long in a place so far from my own home and experience is something I will always be grateful for. The three most important things this field season has made me value more are:

  • Living in close contact with nature
  • The beauty of tundra plants and boreal forests
  • My luck as an early career ecologist to be able to travel to such amazing places
Figure 9a. The view of Kluane Lake from the Kluane Plateau. Picture by Jiri Subrt.
Figure 9b. Very tired Erica at the peak of the Kluane Plateau on the last day of fieldwork! Picture by Jiri Subrt.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the Kluane First Nation, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations for allowing us to work on their lands.  Thank you to all the people that worked so hard over the years to set up and maintain the common garden experiment, including Gergana Daskalova and Mariana García Criado. Thank you to this summer’s field team (Calum Hoad, Diana Jerome, Joseph Everest and Jiri Subrt) for helping me collect the data in the common garden and on the Kluane Plateau. Thank you to this summer’s Arctic team (Elise Gallois, Madelaine Anderson, Clara Surprenant, Zabrina Leslie) for collecting data on Qikiqtaruk.

Find full article written for the Botanical Society of Scotland Newsletter 2023 here:

erica_zaja_shrubs_canada_2022_kluane_report-1Download

Team shrub – together yet apart

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It’s been about a week since Team Shrub has split up into two teams: the Kluane Crew and the Arctic Crew. The former has stayed at Kluane, while the latter is now in Inuvik, awaiting their departure to Qikiqtaruk island on the Yukon Arctic Coast. In this blog post, you can read about our adventures since we parted ways. 

The thing that ties our separate team adventures together are charter flights, some people got to take them and others of us are still waiting… and waiting… (photo credit: Erica Zaja)

The Adventures of the Kluane Crew

by Erica, Jiri, Calum, Diana and Joe

Since we parted ways with the other half of Team Shrub, we’ve been having a blast. We have reached new heights in the icefields, graduated our degrees on the shores of Kluane Lake, flown our drones over the rapidly melting snow and discovered new-to-us tundra plant species. Read about our goings on in Kluane in the first half of this blog post.

Flight to the Icefields

The prop plane (Helio Courier) that took us to the icefields. (photo credit: Erica Zaja)

Living close to the Silver City Airstrip seemed too good to be true. When we found out there was the possibility of flying over the St. Elias Icefields with Icefield Discovery, we jumped at the opportunity – literally! Having never been on a prop plane, we were nervous but also incredibly excited. Meeting the amazing pilots Raphael and Kensuke, and having the safety brief made us feel a lot better.

The take off was incredibly smooth, more than many commercial flights! The views from the air were incredible. First, we flew over Kluane Lake, then we passed the glaciers over the majestic mountains of the Kluane National Park. Throughout the flight, our pilots told us all about the landscape, pointing out landmarks and scouting for sheep on the mountain slopes. The landing was bumpy – as one would expect when landing on a glacier – but very fun!

Once on the top of the icefields, excitement levels skyrocketed! It was all so incredibly bright. All we could see was snow, extending over the horizon to the mountains. It was an unexpectedly warm and comfortable temperature. Touching the snow was such an incredible feeling – crystalline ice! We ran, jumped, and frolicked in the frozen landscape. It felt like being on top of the world!

Erica jumping on the icefields. (photo credit: Jiri Suburt)
Jiri jumping on the icefields by Erica. (photo credit: Erica Zaja)

Being in the icefields made us want to explore the mountains around us further and made us feel incredibly grateful to be living in such a stunning place all summer. Once back at the field station, the experience almost felt unreal – did we really fly to the largest non-polar ice field in the world? It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime moment that the Kluane Crew will never forget!

Erica and Jiri having a celebratory run on the glacier! (photo credit: Kensuke, Pilot)

Flying drones on the KLUANE Plateau

The prize for the project that requires the heaviest equipment goes to… Calum and his drone surveys! Yes, going up to the Kluane Plateau with drones has been quite challenging! On a typical day we start walking by Kluane Lake, continue through the boreal forest, pass treeline, then shrubline, and suddenly we are in the tundra! The Kluane Plateau – or The Plateau as we like to call it – is where most of our current data collection takes place. Calum and Joe are our drone experts here at Kluane, and we can definitely say that they are doing a great job! Though one question remains, will we ever get used to hiking 1000 m up the very steep trail?

Calum and Joe flying drones on the Kluane Plateau (photo credit: Jiri Subrt)
Calum and Joe through the binoculars discussing flight plans in buggy tundra. (photo credit: Jiri Subrt)

Pre-plateau poses by members of the Kluane Crew. (photo credit: Calum Hoad and Jiri Subrt for the photo of Calum)

Graduating by Kluane Lake

The Team Shrub field assistants Jiri and Erica have recently completed their BSc degrees in Ecological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Unfortunately, being in the field for the summer meant that they could not attend their official graduation ceremony in Scotland. The amazing Kluane Team did not want them to miss out on such a milestone! After luring Jiri and Erica on a “team walk to the lake”, Calum, Joe, and Diana surprised the two field assistants with a bottle of champagne hidden in a pond close to the Lake.

The surprises didn’t end there! Our “crafty stitcher”, Diana, put together some graduation gowns made of black mesh and Joe wrote pretend diplomas tied up in flagging tape. Fieldwork equipment really comes to loads of uses! Luckily, Jiri and Erica never leave the station without their sun caps, which came in handy for the classic graduation hat toss! After a few glasses of champagne with a lovely view over the lake at sunset, the graduation ceremony came to an end, with some very happy field assistants.

Erica and Jiri throw their caps in the air. (photo credit: Joe Everest)
Erica with her pretend graduation gown and diploma by Team Shrub. (photo credit: Joe Everest)

Luckily, Jiri and Erica never leave the station without their sun caps, which came in handy for the classic graduation hat toss! After a few glasses of champagne with a lovely view over the lake at sunset, the graduation ceremony came to an end, with some very happy field assistants!

Plant hunting! 

One of our goals for this summer was to get to know the diversity of plants around Kluane and to be able to confidently identify them in the field. After all, plant ID is an essential fieldwork skill! Taking pictures of plants in the field and identifying them back at the station has become the new fun activity within our team. That’s field life! Until now, we have identified more than 50 species! Our field assistant, Jiri, has created a beautifully detailed collection of plant pictures, along with their scientific names and main characteristics. We cannot wait to use this resource when trying to identify plants in the field! With more than six weeks left in the field… will we surpass one hundred plant species?

photo credit: Jiri Subrt
photo credit: Jiri Subrt
photo credit: Jiri Subrt

Quick tundra ecology quiz: Can you identify these majestic tundra plants? (photo credit: Jiri Subrt)

So that sums up the adventures of the past week or so. What other adventures does Kluane have in store for us this summer? Only time will tell.

The Kaskawulsh Glacier from our flight to the icefields. (Photo credit: Erica Zaja)

The Adventures of the Arctic Crew

By Clara, Madi, Elise, Zabrina and Isla

The Arctic Crew of Team Shrub departed the Kluane Region and travelled via Whitehorse across the Arctic Circle to our new temporary home of Inuvik. We thought we would be here for just a few days, but a week later, we are still in town and waiting to catch our much awaited charter flight to Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island on the Arctic Coast of the Yukon. Read about our adventures as we pack and do logistics in the searing heat of summer in the land of the midnight sun during a “heat dome”.

The smoke from wildfires coves the Yukon as we saw on the flight to Inuvik. (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)
The Arctic Crew at our arrival in Inuvik. (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)

The Heat Dome – the hottest place in Canada at 32C

“Travel to the Arctic!”, they said. “It’ll be cold!”, they said. We’re not so sure…. As soon as we stepped off the plane as it landed at Inuvik airport, we were met with a wall of tropical humid air, and we had to check to make sure we hadn’t accidentally boarded a plane to Mexico instead of the Canadian Arctic.

Sure enough, we arrived in Inuvik during a heat wave. More precisely, a heat ‘dome’. This is a meteorological feature that occurs when high pressure is trapped over a region by the jet stream, meaning the areas below experience baking hot conditions for days on end. This northern heatwave has apparently been breaking records in the Yukon and Northwest Territories this week, reaching a high of 32°C on the 7th of July.

Not fantastic news for the Arctic crew who packed our thermal long johns and puffer down jackets in preparation for island life! To cope, we’ve been visiting ice cream shops and taking luxuriant swims in the local ‘airport lake’. 

Logistics in Inuvik

“Where is the sharpie?”, “Has anyone got the duct tape?”, “Did we take a photo of that box before we fastened the cable ties?”. This has been the soundscape of our work in the Aurora Research Institute loading dock this week as the Arctic team has been busy packing and re-packing cargo ready to fly out to the island later in the week. We’ve all been getting buff hoisting boxes around between the storage cage and the weighing scales – but don’t worry, we’ve been treating ourselves with much needed ice cream floats and BBQ food!

We’ve also been busy zipping between the handful of shops in Inuvik buying essential groceries, important hardware, and the most precious and rare cargo of all, lactose-free milk (Madi) and gluten-free bread (Elise). This has been an action-packed week defined by sweltering temperatures and multiple spreadsheet tabs, but we’ll appreciate all our hard work when we get to the island with all of our scientific gear, food, and luggage in tow – that is if we don’t forget anything!

The Aklak Hanger (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)
Ready to go! (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)

Music jams and Research convos in Inuvik

One of the great things about visiting the Aurora Research Station is meeting other researchers from different institutes around the world: University of Alberta, University of Victoria and the Alfred Wegener Institute, amongst others. The heatwave has been absolutely perfect for BBQs out in front of the row houses; between roasted halloumi and hot dogs, we’ve been able to fill up and chat with fellow researchers about the science behind their research. Our shared housing situation has also allowed us to meet our wonderful roommate from whom we’ve learned about greenhouses and food security up in the North.

After dinner, it never took too long for the guitar, fiddle and ukulele to be taken out of their cases and tuned for a little jam session between the musical members of each team. With guitar, viola, mandolin and ukulele, we have enough instruments to form a band! But do we have the required musical talents? Maybe not, but have a listen to the music jam in Inuvik in the following audio clip. We’ll practice on the island!

A clip of a row house music jam with Trevor from UVic and Isla in Inuvik.

Off to Qikiqtaruk

Now, by the end of the week, we are approaching the point of no return. Our charter flight was scheduled for Sunday at 10am. But Sunday has come and gone and now so has Monday too. When will we fly? Time feels in standstill as we wait each day for the call to rush to the airport with the last of our bags and all of our frozen food.

Once we board that Twin Otter, we’ll leave the connectivity of Inuvik and head off to Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island. The ice is breaking up with creaking and cracking along the Arctic Coast of the Yukon and the plants are whistling in the wind and calling us over. Listen closely to see if you can hear from afar! We’re crossing our fingers for good weather and hoping the fog stays at bay, allowing us a safe flight over with a great view.

The sea ice conditions on Wednesday the 6th of July 2022 on Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island from the Sentinel 2 satellites (Sentinel EO browser)

Monday update…the fog has not stayed at bay. We are still here in Inuvik, but for how much longer??? Only time and the pilots will tell. Fortunately there is still one ice cream shop to check out (soft serve!), but the temperature is plummeting making ice cream less appealing for some perhaps, but not for us!

The circumpolar map on the floor of the Inuvik airport allows us to chart our locations on either side of the Yukon Territory. (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)

Two crews 1000 kms apart. Even though our adventures may take us in different directions, Team Shrub is still together!

Words and photos by Team Shrub

Team Shrub’s 2022 journey to the Yukon

| imyerssmith

Where does a journey begin? We haven’t had a full field season for three years. Due to a little-known virus called COVID-19 we’ve had to wait until 2022. In a sense, the journey that takes us here to this field season began many years ago. But for some, the journey only started only a few short months ago when they applied to join the team. However you look at it, this year in 2022 we are a new team together on a new adventure. 

And where are we going on this adventure? Team Shrub is spending the summer across the Yukon Territory from the Kluane Region in the south, to Tombstone in the Central Yukon up to Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island on the Yukon North Slope. For some of us this adventure takes place in our own backyards, others have never been as far as now from their hometown. In this blog post, we’ll introduce you to the 2022 Team Shrub Field Crew and the journey that we have taken to get here – to Kluane Lake in the Yukon.

Waves on Kluane Lake (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)
A boreal forest solstice sunset (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)

We’re a team of ten intrepid researchers hailing from the University of Edinburgh, Université de Sherbrooke and Yukon University. What brings us to the Yukon this summer is a love of plants, a fascination with the way the world works and a lack of fear of biting insects and super cold water. Together, we’re here to understand how plants respond when the climate warms, but we’re exploring that topic from all angles this summer using hyperspectral sensors, drones, time-lapse cameras, clippers and measuring tapes.

We’re trying to piece together a complex puzzle: from how individual plants respond as the climate warms, through to how plant and animal species interact with each other, up to how we can spot changing tundra landscapes from space. Across the summer, in these blog posts we’ll try to paint a picture of the systems we are studying and the things that we are finding as we battle the bugs, car troubles and belated shipments to conduct our research.

Team Shrub in our first full group photo in Whitehorse (photo credit: Sian Williams)

Each field season is its own journey and this field season has started with some unexpected hiccups. When we first arrived in Whitehorse and were running around town our vehicle started making a subtle beeping noise. “What is that?”, we asked ourselves, “maybe the check oil indicator”, a little while later Joe pulled me aside and said: “Isla, there is a screw poking out of our tire”. Now that we knew what the problem was – a rapidly flattening tire – we needed to figure out how to solve the problem.

After stops and calls to most of the tire stores in town we found by word of mouth ‘The Tire Guy’ who sorted us out with a fix of the flat, but also discovered that we had another problem tire. So then it was back to Canadian tire to purchase two new tires, an extra night in Whitehorse for me and a near full tire switch to get new tires on to replace the damaged ones. The vehicle still needs some other sorting out in the long-term, but for now we are back on the road for the rest of our field journey. And what a journey it should be with a crew of 10 people working at field sites across the Yukon on questions as broad as how are tundra growing seasons shifting with climate change, to what controls the growth of boreal forest shrubs or tundra shrubs growing in a boreal forest environment, to how to the traits and functions of plants vary across elevational and latitudinal gradients, through to how we can observe tundra biodiversity and greening from space.

The new tires on the vehicle (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)
Arctic willows surviving in the south (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)

If you ask my friends, I haven’t stopped talking about Canada since I returned to Scotland from an exchange to the University of Calgary in 2015. I’ve been stoked to get back to Canada ever since and I can’t think of a better way to do it than a field season in the mountains surrounding Kluane Lake in the Yukon! Before I could hop on a plane (or three) and make it to the field – I had to send the Team’s scientific kit ahead of me, which turned out to be more of a challenge than I was expecting.

It turns out DHL is an acronym for ‘Doesn’t Handle Lithium’ and the shipment boomerang-ed back to me with ‘too many batteries’ written on all the boxes. This began a frantic lithium treasure hunt to remove the elusive and sometimes very tiny batteries that seemed to be the problem and re-ship everything before I departed Scotland. Eventually, the shipment departed – fingers crossed we see it soon! After months of writing applications for Canadian drone permits, applying for equipment loans, and dealing an array of other miscellaneous team logistics, I’m delighted I’ve finally made it to Kluane, even if all of our shipment hasn’t yet due to unknown delays. I’m feeling very at home in the mountains (even with an overly warm welcome from the mosquitoes) and can’t wait to immerse myself in Yukon research, hiking, and cold water! And I can’t wait to start flying drones over melting snow patches to better understand tundra greening seen from space.

The shipment leaves (photo credit: Calum Hoad)
The shipment returns – noooo!!! (photo credit: Calum Hoad)

After finishing an ecology degree in Edinburgh a few months ago, I was super excited about this scientific expedition. I have always loved spending time outside but never spent more than two months in the field. This summer I am working as field assistant for Team Shrub, which will be my first big summer field season ever! After the initial excitement of knowing that the field season was happening, I started feeling slightly nervous.

Logistics, new equipment, not knowing what to expect, and mostly, doubting my ability to do the job. Once we arrived to Vancouver, we were welcomed by beach weather and ice-cream which alleviated any leftover stress – there’s only excitement left! Spending months researching tundra plant vegetation change for my undergraduate dissertation was a great experience, but I am thrilled to finally see the ecosystem I have only read about until now! As field assistants, we are here to help with any project from Team Shrub or our collaborators. With the amount of projects to work on, we will certainly not get bored! I am also hoping to find inspiration for a Master’s project. And the best tip for fieldwork? Don’t have any expectations, go with the flow! 

Jetlag morning beach walks in Vancouver (photo credit: Jiri Subrt)
Fancy ice creams in Vancouver with Zulu the dog (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)

My taxi driver at Vancouver airport told me that I’d have a hard time doing research because there are no plants in the Arctic. This summer, I am on a mission to prove him wrong.

This should have been the third full summer field season of my PhD – but it turns out to be the first! Out of the sleepy lull of lockdowns and travel cancellations, this summer’s field adventures have been a blast to help to organise (over the past three years)!

From trialing my field methods for the NERC-funded TundraTime Project including the above-and-below ground protocol in the snowy Cairngorms National Park, to obtaining my drone pilot licences, to organising international shipments for my collaborators, and much more, I’ve certainly been kept busy! This spring, I completed an internship with the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research in Trondheim, and from there I hopped onto a plane to the UK for a fleeting visit and to grab my thermal long-johns and bug nets. Then I flew straight to the west coast of Canada for a few weeks in Kluane which will be followed by a month up on Qikiqtaruk. I can’t wait to learn more about these wonderful places and the phenology of those tundra plants and of course to embrace my old friends mosquitoes with open arms!

Arrival in Whitehorse (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)
Soil cores before removal on the Kluane Plateau (photo credit: Zabrina Leslie)

Having spent multiple seasons in the Colorado Rockies, I am not a stranger to field work – but every season is different! I arrived in the Yukon late one evening in a blaze of boarding passes, oversized bags, and an 18-hour Shakira-filled playlist. I may have been the last to arrive but as lead food coordinator, my joining the team was long awaited. Organising nine weeks-worth of food across the Yukon was a challenge, but turns out if you buy enough Country Time, Ritz crackers, and Oreos, you can keep a team of 10 pretty happy.

Conversely, if you make 10 pounds of tortellini in an evening, people may never let you live it down. Despite being North American, I now live in Edinburgh and have spent very little time in Canada, but I’m delighted to finally spend some time further north amongst the spectacular scenery of Kluane and the wider Yukon. I’ve taken some measurements, made millions of to-do lists, and swatted some mosquitoes, so I feel like I’m settling into the fieldwork just fine. I’ll be deep in the forests bushwhacking to get to Boreal shrubs in no time. Hopefully by the end of the summer I’ll be closer to understanding how they respond to variations in climate.

Hanging out in the Superstore parking lot (photo credit: Erica Zaja)
Boreal forest reflections (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)

It feels great to be back in Yukon! After spending last summer here in Kluane, the place feels very familiar! There was a bit of stress leading up to our departure, but all things considered, Clara and I had a pretty smooth journey from Sherbrooke to Whitehorse, where we met up with the rest of the team. After almost two years of chatting on Zoom, it is a relief to finally meet the Edinburgh-based Team Shrub in person. Some are taller (Joe) than expected and some are smaller (Erica), but all are 10/10.

I’m very excited to show the team around the Kluane plateau, have a team dip in the lake and explore this wonderful region together! We’ve had a lot of fun so far and I’m excited to head up north soon for my postponed first Arctic field season as a part of the Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory project. With hyperspectral sensors and cameras, scanners and balances were going to test how we can use information beyond what we can see with the eye to capture the biodiversity of tundra ecosystems and the properties of tundra plants. But first, we needed to collect the first of the common garden data of the season.

Salix arctica in the common garden (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)
Measuring shrubs in the common garden (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)

My journey to the Yukon started while watching a lecture on Arctic greening and the impacts on herbivores by Isla, something clicked. I got curious and investigated vegetation change in the Porcupine caribou habitat as my dissertation topic. I read papers about climate change, shrub encroachment, caribou diets, hoping that one day I’d get the chance to see a real caribou! Luckily, a job opportunity from Team Shrub popped up: a call for field assistants for the upcoming field season in the Yukon.

I couldn’t miss the opportunity! Once I got my application sent in, I started slightly panicking. Would I be up for the task? Self-doubt became even more real when I did get the job! A huge amount of logistical prep started piling up. Applying for funding, buying equipment, writing a project proposal to collect my own data. The next few months were a blur. Suddenly there I was on my very first long-haul flight. Excitement levels were over the roof – 11/10. After a few wobbles on the way, we finally made it to Kluane Lake. I had never seen such huge mountains and I can’t wait to experience more of this incredible place – despite having to karate my way out of mosquito clouds!

On the plane (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith)
Clouds of mosquitos (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)

Having just finished the first year of my undergrad at Université de Sherbrooke, I am the baby of this year’s Team Shrub! I’ve travelled a ton(ne) around the southern Canadian provinces, but I had been looking for an excuse to explore the Great North within the Great White North. I was astounded when the opportunity to join Team Shrub fell within my reach after only two semesters studying ecology. I can’t wait to learn tundra ecology in the field with the team!

Madi, a few too many oversized bags and I were lucky to experience smooth sailing from Sherbrooke all the way to Whitehorse. Now, I am thrilled to be helping out on some amazing projects for this summer, here in the breath-taking mountainous landscape of Kluane and then on Qikiqtaruk later this summer. I couldn’t have asked for a more exciting first field season! Here to more bonfires on the beach.

Fire on the beach (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)
Campfire chat (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)

The mountains of North Western Canada have long been a draw and the opportunity to spend a PhD summer working there was an opportunity far too good to pass up. I dove into the organisation and spent a spring swimming in permits, logistics and admin for far flung lands. After all of this anticipation and excitement, we’ve made it to the Yukon and are all settled in, accompanied by our adorable trio of resident ground squirrels – Chipchop, Jean Jacques and Roger.

A couple of days ago, we got the chance to hike up to the alpine on the Kluane Plateau and I got to see the tundra ecosystems that I’ll be studying for the very first time. The mountains of the Kluane region are just as if not more majestic than I was imagining. Time to get measuring, drone flying and climbing some hills to figure out how the diversity of tundra ecosystems and the functions that plants provide vary up mountains and across the Yukon.

June flowers (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)
Chipchop, Jean Jacques and Roger the Arctic Ground Squirrels (photo credit: Calum Hoad)

My journey officially started as a kid growing up in the Yukon with close connections to the Kluane area. From my obsession with rocks and exposure to plants and animals from my elders, I was hooked with being out on the land and this continues to this day. This summer, I have just completed my BSc in Northern Environmental and Conservation Sciences with the University of Alberta and Yukon University. My journey with Team Shrub started when an email fell into my inbox.

As a teenager, I dreamed to become a photographer for Nat Geo. This summer, I have the amazing opportunity supported by the National Geographic Society STEM field assistant program and see my home in a new capacity as a researcher! Leading up to the field season, my home served as port of arrival for many Team Shrub packages. This caused much confusion within my family: who was this mysterious Dr. Isla Myers-Smith? My photos about the state of snowmelt on the Kluane plateau allowed the team to get a general idea of what to expect. My knowledge of the Kluane region has made me a bit of a tour guide to this year’s eclectic group. I am very excited to join the Arctic crew to explore new horizons on Qikiqtaruk island this summer.

Hedysarum boreale subsp. mackenzii (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)
Our neighbour here at Kluane Lake (photo credit: Joe Everest)

This is only the beginning of an exciting journey for Team Shrub. We hope it will be a journey of discovery, inspiration and scientific advancement. Most of us are very much out of our comfort zone, but having an amazing team helps to create the feeling of being at home in the field. There will be challenges ahead, but we are ready to tackle them!

Shrubs at sunset on the shores of Kluane Lake (photo credit: Isla Myers-Smith, National Geographic Society)

Words and photos by Team Shrub

Willow – a sequel

| imyerssmith

In a time long ago (or only a few years ago, depending on how you look at it) in land far, far away (or close by depending on where you are reading this post from) tundra willows have been eking out an existence on the warmest edge of their environmental niche. Willows from the North and willows from the South, from high up in the mountains or out on the Arctic coast, are growing together in a common and warmer environment. But over the past eight long years, what has this adventurous yet labourious experiment taught us about the shrubification taking over tundra as the climate warms? Read on to find out.

In 2018, we wrote up a blog post providing some interim results about our tundra willow common garden experiment and we even made a movie trailer!

The trailer from our 2018 blog post about our common garden experiment entitled Willow. editing credit: Gergana Daskalova
Willow

But what is going on with the willows now? What have we learned from our eight-year long experiment. We will be working on writing up these results over the coming year, but we thought we could give you all a sneak preview in this blog post in the form of a mini scientific paper.

Title

Tundra shrubs take over when moved down mountains,

but not AS much when Moved south

or

Tundra shrubs grow rapidly in warmer conditions,

but local alpine willows outpace northern Arctic willows

Abstract

Tundra shrubs can grow rapidly in warmer environments reaching heights as high as over a metre in less than eight years of growth. However, Arctic tundra willows don’t grow as fast as local alpine willows when grown in a warmer environment in the boreal forest. This suggests that tundra shrubs genetically vary across latitudes in the timing of their growth, the way that they grow and the size to which they grow. And that we should expect rapid, but not uniform rates of shrub expansion across the tundra biome with warming.

The common garden!

Introduction

A major unknown in tundra ecology is whether shrubs will rapidly respond to changing climate conditions or whether plants are genetically adapted to their current environment, thus limiting future vegetation change. We designed a tundra willow common garden experiment to investigate the variation in tundra shrub growth across the Yukon Territory.

Our Research Question:

How does growth vary in southern alpine versus northern Arctic willows when grown in a common and warmer environment?

  • A grey jay (Perisoreus canadensis) supervising our common garden experiment
  • Bringing water from the lake to the garden.
  • Rooting hormone to help our willows settle in their new home.
  • Walking to the common garden ready for some willow action!

Methods

We collected willows from the alpine tundra of the Kluane Region (61°N) to the arctic tundra of the Yukon North Slope (70°N) and planted them in a warmer boreal forest environment.

The tundra ecosystems have average summer temperatures of around 10°C and growing seasons of around 60 days whereas the boreal forest site has temperatures of around 15°C and a growing season of closer to 80 days. We established the garden in 2013 and planted willows each year until 2018.

The garden is planted with three species: Salix pulchra (diamond-shaped willow) and Salix richardsonii (Richardson’s willow) and Salix arctica (Arctic willow) from the Kluane Region and Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island.

The willows were planted across the garden in different beds to account for variation in the microtopography and soil conditions within the garden.

The common garden experiment from the air. photo credit: Iain Myers-Smith

Results

Here are the headline findings including the latest data from the 2021 field season:

  • Tall willows from the alpine and same latitude grew faster and taller than willows from 1000 km to the north in the Arctic. The alpine plants from the two tall willow species were 2 to 6 times taller and twice to three times as fast as the Arctic plants reaching average heights of 1 m and growing at rates of on average 5 cm and up to 20 cm per year in eight years since planting.
Figure 1. Difference in willow growth between species for the two different willow source populations the Kluane alpine (green) and Qikiqtaruk Arctic tundra (blue) for all willows that remain alive in the experiment with age (top plots) and in 2021 (bottom plots).
  • The tall willows from the Arctic have smaller and lighter leaves with a greater specific leaf area (the ratio of area to mass) relative to the alpine willows. The leaves from the Arctic plants are four times smaller and lighter than the alpine willows.
Figure 2. Difference in willow traits including height and leaf traits between species for the two different willow source populations the Kluane alpine (green) and Qikiqtaruk Arctic tundra (blue) in the common garden (bright colours) when compared to data from the source locations (faded colours). Common garden leaf trait data are from 2017 and canopy heights are from 2021, source location data are from 2013 – 2017.
  • The dwarf willow species Salix arctica from the alpine and Arctic have grown equally well with no difference in canopy height, plant size or growth rates. The size of the plants and their leaves is similar between the Arctic and alpine plants after six years since planting.
Measuring the height of Salix arctica (arctic willow). photo credit: Gergana Daskalova
  • Arctic willows don’t grow for as long as alpine willows each summer. The leaves tall Arctic willows start to turn yellow in mid-July each year, three weeks earlier than the alpine willows.
An Arctic willow in the common garden experiment turning yellow in mid July with green alpine willows behind it.

So what does this all mean and why does it matter? How can the findings from this experiment help us understand tundra shrubification with climate change?

Discussion

Through this experiment, we now know that rates of shrub growth can be very rapid in a warmer boreal forest environment. Growth rates in the experiment were more rapid than we currently see in willows growing in warming tundra locations with shrub heights reaching over a metre in only eight years – that is more than 10 cm of vertical growth per year! That is pretty rapid when compared to the couple of centimetres of growth seen in naturally growing Arctic and alpine tundra willows.

We also found that willows from the north that are moved south are genetically adapted to the midnight sun and different light conditions up north. In Kluane, the willows from the Arctic begin to change colour in the middle of the summer and the willows are not able to grow for as long. Those northern willows grew more slowly and reached smaller plant sizes across the experiment in the two tall willow species that we studied, but surprisingly not in the third dwarf willow species Salix arctica.

Salix arctica is one of the most widely distributed tundra willows and grows as far north as the top of Ellesmere Island and Greenland at over 80°N. For this species, growth rates were similar between the Arctic and alpine plants suggesting that some willow species might be better able to take advantage of changing environmental and light conditions even when moved long distances.

Salix arctica on Ellesmere Island. photo credit: Anne Bjorkman

Conclusion

The take-home message is that tundra shrubs can grow very rapidly in a warmer environment, and thus we should expect further rapid shrub expansion with climate warming. But, we shouldn’t necessarily expect different shrub species to respond in the same ways north to south across the tundra biome. Shrubs that are adapted to their local conditions and are also able to take advantage of the warming climate will likely respond most rapidly. And there could be some surprises in store with future shrubification where the species that we least expect, like the cold-loving dwarf willow Salix arctica, could potentially thrive the best under changing climate conditions.

Meticulous measurement collection in the common garden experiment. video credit: Noah Bell

Acknowledgement

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the countless hours it has taken to set up and maintain this experiment over the past eight years. It has been and continues to be a labour of love! Garden party to celebrate anyone?

By Isla with 2021 common garden data collected by Madelaine and Beth

Written for the 2021 Yukon University Northern Studies Field Methods Course

A common garden tea party!

The Team Shrub remote field season

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This year is a year unlike any other. In 2020, our best laid plans of fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic were overturned by a global pandemic. Field scientists around the world had to halt their field programs, creating gaps in decades-long datasets. But safety first, along with beauty and fun, is the Team Shrub motto and the safety of the northern communities in which we work is paramount, so we have decided to plan an entirely new type of field season – a remote one. The pandemic has brought us working from home, online lab meetings, online talks and conferences, can we also have a remote field season? Can we address our field research goals (or some of them) from our existing data and anything being collected by satellites in the summer of 2020? With this blog post, we will share our Team Shrub 2020 remote field season.

The new mode of conducting collaborative remote field research involves weekly lab meetings online rather than 24 hours together in a tiny cabin in the Arctic.

As the Robbie Burn’s poem states: “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, / Gang aft agley” (translation: “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”). In 2020, funded through a NERC UK – Canada collaboration bursary with the Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory project and Canadian and international partners, we were going to set out to test how microclimate influences plant productivity, phenology and biodiversity patterns across the landscape. But when the field plans were put on hold until 2021, we went back to the drawing board to ask which of our research questions we could still ask with our existing data and satellite remote sensing. During our remote field season, still funded by the NERC Arctic Office, we have a number of research goals summarised in the following research questions.

How do the following vary with microclimate in tundra ecosystems?

  1. Plant productivity – the tundra greenness derived from multipspectral drone data
  2. Plant phenology – the timing of leaf out, flowering and yellowing of leaves
  3. Spectral diversity – the variation in the light spectra reflected off of the land surface

Mapping tundra microclimates

Tundra plant responses to warming are influenced by the local climate conditions in which plants grow. Research to-date indicates that warmer and wetter microclimates are experiencing more vegetation change. If microclimate is a major driver of tundra plant responses to warming, we will need additional landscape-level information to make accurate future projections of Arctic vegetation change. Since we can’t get to the field in person, by compiling our existing data including temperature, active layer, soil moisture, phenocam, shrubrings, decomposition and drone data we can still tackle these questions. PhD student Elise’s research will address these questions in collaboration with the rest of Team Shrub and our other collaborators such as Anne, Gerte and Jeff. Perhaps, we can answer some of the mysteries of microclimate with our existing data and new analyses during our remote field season.

This somewhat psychedelic image is the microclimate of tundra plants. Using drone imagery, Elise is estimating the microclimate for tundra plants on Qikiqtaruk using the Microclima package. South-facing slopes are warming and lower ground is usually wetter. But, how does this variation influence the growth of tundra plants?

Gauging tundra greening

Last summer through the Greening Arctic project, we mapped island-scale tundra greenness using drones and the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment project airborne data collection. Now we can compare the greenness derived from satellites with tundra microclimates to understand what controls where the greenest parts of the landscape are and how that greenness is captured by sensors on drones, planes and satellites across spatial scales. The remote field season team and Jeff and our collaborators through the High Latitude Drone Ecology Network project are working to answer this very question with our data from our field site on Qikiqtaruk on the Arctic coast of the Yukon and other locations around the Arctic.

Flying drones across the tundra in 2019 to map out tundra greenness across the landscape. (photo credit: Gergana Daskalova)

Inspecting the tundra hyperspectrally

Our research goals for the field season of 2020 were to conduct the main Arctic field season of the CABO project. We were going to capture tundra vegetation from leaves to landscapes using hyperspectral data. That field work will move to 2021 (we hope), but luckily through the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) project flights in 2019 and some preliminary data collection from 2018 and 2019, we can begin to explore how hyperspectral data relate to tundra microclimates and plant biodiversity. This work will form the basis of future Team Shrub research by our starting PhD students in 2020 and through collaborations with the High Latitude Drone Ecology Network, CABO and NASA ABoVE projects. We are hoping that our remote field season will provide a head start on the data collection in 2021.

The flight lines for the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment data collection on Qikiqtaruk in 2019. With these and on the ground data we can begin to explore how tundra plant communities and biodiversity can be detected using hyperspectral data beyond what is visible to the naked eye.

Photographing tundra phenology

From 2016 to 2019 – and hopefully also in 2020 if the batteries last and the muskox behave – we have been setting out time-lapse cameras across the landscape to capture plant phenology. These so-called phenocams provide a high temporal resolution record of the day-to-day and even hour-to-hour changes of plants. We can measure the exact moment that a bud bursts, a flower opens or the tips of the leaves turn yellow each summer giving us a really precise picture of how tundra plants grow across the two-month long Arctic summers. During our remote field season, Joe and Maude have been going through the accumulated phenocam data identifying each moment that the plants leaf out, flower and senesce over time. We can then test how the plant phenology is influenced by the microclimates in which the plants grow, to help us to better understand phenology change with climate warming. Will a bear or muskox show up in the previous years’ phenocam data? – it looks like they have!

Meet the remote field team

Our remote field season will be led by first year PhD student Elise and Team Shrub field assistants Shawn and Maude, Isla is on standby to help with logistics, Team Shrub alumni Joe and external collaborator Ali have signed up as well for our virtual trip to the Arctic Coast of the Yukon through data. Some participants even get to go to a field site in Arctic Sweden this summer such as co-supervised PhD student Gerte! Our remote field season crew has been trying to live the life of the field ecologists from our pandemic locations. As Joe says: “dress for the job you want, not the job you have”. And clearly based on our dress, we would rather be off in the Arctic doing fieldwork!

Joe measuring tundra plant phenology remotely using time-lapse camera data from his kitchen table – I guess it can be quite cold even indoors during the Scottish summer.
Elise gearing up to quantify tundra microclimates remotely using drone data, measure the growth on her house plants and capture below-ground plant productivity in the Swedish Arctic – hopefully the mosquitoes aren’t that bad in her Edinburgh kitchen!
Isla chasing comets, tracking the local wildlife and of course spending too much time in front of a computer screen (not pictured).

In August, through quarantines and perseverance, Isla actually made it north to the Yukon. Not as far as Qikiqtaruk and our Arctic site, but on a visit to the Outpost Research Station in the Kluane Region of the Southern Yukon. There she visited the seven-year long common garden experiment where we are exploring the limits of growth of tundra willows when released from their cold tundra environments into the much warmer Boreal forest. This year has been a rainy and cool summer in the Southern Yukon, unlike the Arctic heatwave in Siberia, which is very much to the taste of the tundra willows, and they have continued to grow beyond expectations. In just seven years, some shrubs are over two metres in diameter and over half a metre tall. Other shrubs are just eking out an existence Arctic-style by keeping their annual growth to a minimum. From the air you can see the variation in growth among these Arctic and alpine willows. In the remote field season, we can compile all seven years of data and begin to write up our results of how tundra shrubs might be expected to respond as the Arctic warms up to temperatures beyond the current day conditions. Thanks to Amaya, Judy and Iain for help with the data collection!

The common garden in 2020 with Isla waving for scale. Some of those shrubs are turning into monsters in the oldest beds of the garden planted in 2013. How big will they get? Only time will tell. (photo credit: Iain Myers-Smith)

This summer, the Team Shrub adventures are a bit different than in the past. But we’ll keep you posted on our research progress and regale you with stories of a remote field season. With far fewer mosquitoes and maybe more sedentary research adventures, we hope the research achievements will be just as exciting! Stay tuned to hear about our 2020 remote field season findings.

If you want to hear more about our research and our remote field season plans check out this podcast!
Arctic Adaptation – An Interview With Dr. Isla Myers-Smith

If you want to read more about our recent drone research check out this article published this week!
Drones Help Bridge the Gaps in Assessing Global Change

Photo credit: Iain Myers-Smith

Team Shrub hosts Real Scientists

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This week Team Shrub is doing our first social media takeover.  We’ll be hosting Real Scientists on Twitter!

To read about our three primary tweeters this week, check out the Real Scientists blog post.

Here are some quotes from the post:

Real Scientists is diving into the fascinating world of northern ecosystems with Team Shrub! That’s right — we have THREE scientists on deck this week! Team Shrub (@TeamShrub) is the lab of Dr Isla Myers-Smith (@IslaHMS), Chancellor’s Fellow in the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh. She’s joined by PhD students Gergana Daskalova (@gndaskalova) and Elise Gallois (@e_gallois).

A bit about the three of us from the post:

Welcome to Real Scientists! How did you get started in science?

Isla Myers-Smith: My parents were ecologists, so you could argue that ecology is the family business. My parents have always been my most important scientific mentors. Even though my own career has led me in new directions, whether it was counting tent caterpillars or finding sparrow nests, my parents provided the foundation and inspiration for my own scientific career.

My love of the Arctic was first inspired by a family trip to the Yukon and time spent on the tundra when I lived in Alaska. There is something magical about the lands beyond the treeline that has always captured my imagination. Being up North and watching sometimes dramatic change play out before my eyes has captured my scientific curiosity. In my research, I want to figure out how tundra ecosystems are changing as the climate warms so that we can better predict the future of our planet.

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What does your work involve, and where does it take you?

Gergana Daskalova: Way back in sixth grade, a friend of mine said she saw a woodpecker over the weekend. I got intrigued and read a bit about woodpeckers, went to visit my grandpa in the countryside hoping to spot one, and then kept returning to the village for the birds, the nature and the garden. In ninth grade looking through a guide of uni degrees, I stopped at E — for Ecology — and didn’t look any further.

I am a global change ecologist — my work focuses on how the variety of life on Earth — the planet’s biodiversity — is being altered by land-use change, climate change, land abandonment and other types of environmental shifts. In my work, I harness the power of the recorded observations of hundreds of scientists and volunteers to find the answer to the question — how does global change influence biodiversity? From forest cover change around the world to climate warming in the Arctic and more, I am studying how the world’s ecosystems and the millions of species they support are changing over time.

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What keeps you motivated and what do you want the public to know about your work?

Elise Gallois: The Arctic is warming at a much faster rate than the global average, and this warming is triggering potentially huge landscape changes including widespread accelerated plant growth. While this sounds like a ‘good news story’, these changes have the potential to further alter the climate system even more as a greener Arctic will absorb more of the sun’s heat. I think the public should care about these processes because what happens in the Arctic does not necessarily stay in the Arctic, and also because the tundra ecosystem is really cool and misunderstood!

I love writing and performing stand up comedy! I’ve recently started performing ‘science comedy’ — stand up sets about my research. I believe that communication is a core skill for all scientists, and that where possible, scientists have a duty to disseminate their research to multiple audiences in order to educate, inform decision making, and inspire change — especially within fields as pressing and as pervasive as climate warming and global ecosystem change. As such, I dedicate time to pursuing different forms and media of outreach.

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This week on Real Scientists, we’ll tell you a bit about our research about how ecosystems and different plants and animals respond to global change in the Arctic and all around the world. We’ll share with you some of our scientific findings, fieldwork adventures, the joys of analysing data, our collaborative approach to science, our lives as scientists and maybe a bit about being a scientist under lockdown.

The plan is: Today – Intro to the team, Monday – The greening Arctic, Tuesday – Global biodiversity change, Wednesday – Diversity in data science, Thursday – Scientific storytelling, Friday – Fieldwork adventures and Saturday – Ecology in a changing world.

Let us know if you have any questions or topics you want us to cover this week! Looking forward to sharing our science.

Here’s hoping our social media take over is a success!

by Isla, Gergana and Elise

Weathered in

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Weather can alter the best laid plans when doing Arctic fieldwork. Our final days on Qikiqtaruk did not go according to plan. But then I never feel ready to leave the Arctic anyways. I relished the extra days that we had on the island and the adventures that ensued. Here is my account of being weathered in for almost a week at our Arctic field site. To check out Gergana’s take on those very same final days, see her blog post here.

The end of the field season is always a strange time – a limbo between Arctic fieldwork and the return to the rest of your life. You have your list of goals for the summer that are mostly ticked off. But there is still a mad rush to get the last things done. You say to yourself, “this is the last time I will walk around the spit” or “this will be the last sauna”. This summer the last sauna was definitely not the last as we had quite a few extra days added on to our field season.

Day 41

The day we were scheduled to leave Qikiqtaruk the storm clouds were moving in. Rain had already arrived in Inuvik and due to the bad weather our charter plane couldn’t pick us up. We unpacked our personal bags and settled in for the night.

We saw the newly arrived polar bear across the cove. We first spotted the bear a few days back. This was my first sighting of a polar bear in the wild, despite working in the Arctic for over 10 years and in Polar bear country on Svalbard, Ellesmere, Churchill and here on Qikiqtaruk. The bears have been around me, it is just I have never seen them with my own eyes before. So it was quite the excitement at the first sighting!

Polar_bear
A through the binoculars photo of Slumpy the polar bear from a distance.

Unlike most polar bears, this particular bear was actually not particularly white because it was covered in mud from the permafrost thaw slumps along the coast. We named him Slumpy. He (we thought it was a he) hunkered down across the bay to sleep through the storms. Later on, I spotted a grizzly bear roaming around the ridge near where the polar bear was curled up out of the wind. The two species of bears came within 100 m of each other, but seem to ignore one another. Spotting the two species of bears in the same terrain is an uncommon occurrence – though the two species have been found upon occasion to interbreed.

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Polar bear foot prints on the beach around camp.

Day 42

The winds picked up and it started to rain. Near gale-force winds were predicted. We weren’t going to be flying today. Time to bring in more wood for the wood stove and to bake some cookies. We had eaten the same dinner for two or was it three nights in a row now – sun-dried tomato pasta – hard to beat! There was an evening game of cards planned – an intense game called Snert.

Raven
Ravens playing in the wind above the tent shelters.

Day 43

Today, the winds reached near gale force. That meant no plane again. Instead, more time by the fire. More cooking and cleaning. There were boxes to inventory and more organising to do. Trips to the outhouse were exciting with the wind ripping the door out of your hands. The buildings moan and groan in the wind. The stove pipes rattled. The polar bear was still across the bay hunkered down in the terrible weather. But, we were cosy warm by the wood stove.

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The wind and waves of the constant storm that kept us weathered in for days.

Day 44

Rain and winds again. It was hard to concentrate on much of anything not knowing what the future could hold. Will we fly tomorrow or not? Will we be here for days? Whittling wood, crafts and cooking were the best ways to pass the time. I got out my watercolour paints. There were still some data and camera cards to back up. The bags were still mostly packed.  And we were unsure how much to unpack. We could be leaving at any time if the weather improved.

Bowhead.JPG
A bowhead whale in Pauline Cove in the darkness of the stormy rains.

In the afternoon, we heard that there were bowhead whales in the bay! We rushed out into the horizontal rain trying to keep our cameras dry. There were at least four bowheads close to shore by the sauna swimming back and forth and feeding in the shallows. They were so close you felt you could reach out and touch them. We wonder could they see us through the water? It was too cold to stay out for long, so we did rotations by the fire before heading out again to commune with the whales.

In the evening, we heard a message on the handheld radios. “Polar bear coming to camp”. We grabbed our cameras and threw on our warm clothes and stood outside our building watching from a safe distance. Sure enough along the beach beyond the runway Slumpy was slowly approaching. The rangers scared off the bear after we got a pretty good view from our buildings.

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Slumpy the polar bear and a distant bowhead painted by Isla Myers-Smith.

Day 45

The weather had improved a bit, but there was still some low cloud, rain and fog. Others were more optimistic, but I didn’t think we were flying today. The Community Building became a hair salon for those wanting a trim or style. The sauna was on for everyone to get cleaned up before our returns to town. The polar bear had wandered off. The bowheads were gone. We all went for walks around the spit for fresh air and to stave off cabin fever.

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Snow flakes the size of ping pong balls as winter arrives in August.

In the evening, we looked out the window. Snowflakes the size of ping pong balls were falling from the sky. We rushed out to see first-hand and to catch snowflakes on our tongues. Soon there was enough snow on the ground for a few snowballs and a bit of a snowball fight. How white would it be when we woke up tomorrow? Only time would tell.

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Qikiqtaruk in greys and whites with the fresh dusting of snow.

Day 46

I woke up early to a two-inch blanket of snow across the island. Everything was white including the fog all around. The winds had died down. Qikiqtaruk was a winter wonderland. I walked around camp to enjoy this view of the island that I don’t usually get, but I stayed close to the buildings. Slumpy would blend in much better in this world of white! With the snow and the fog, the plane was unlikely to come right away, so I went back to bed.

The next time I woke things were brighter. The fog had cleared. The snow was melting. The weather might now be flyable! Then we got word, the plane was on the way. We were the second flight, but it was still time to kick into high gear and get our stuff re-packed and out to the runway. We also needed to clean, sweep and mop again. We shifted from being on hold to action mode.

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The plane finally arriving means it is time for us to be leaving the Arctic.

The first plane arrived. We thought to ourselves, we might actually leave on today – our sixth day of being weathered in. The pilot warned us to tell him over InReach if the fog returned or if it started to snow, but instead over the next hours the clouds cleared. We had time to put the drones in the air one last time to capture the island dusted in snow and the first glimpses of sun for over a week. Then finally, we heard the sound of the returning Twin Otter and saw the plane in the distance.

This was our final day on the island. We saw the once verdant green Arctic turn from autumnal yellows and browns to white with snow. The beginning of winter had returned to the Arctic just as we were headed south – the end of the field season.

Words, photos and video by Isla Myers-Smith