Team Shrub Represents at BES

December 22, 2022December 23, 2022 | teamshrub

‘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.

That’s a wrap!#BES2022 is now officially over, but all of our recorded sessions & ePresentations will be available for a further 3 months on Whova 🤩

Thank you to everyone who made this our best Annual Meeting yet, we can’t wait to see you all next year in Belfast for #BES2023 pic.twitter.com/UwY26B7lxO
— British Ecological Society (@BritishEcolSoc) December 21, 2022

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

December 12, 2022December 12, 2022 | teamshrub

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 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.

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.

Team Shrub’s 2022 journey to the Yukon

June 24, 2022June 27, 2022 | 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)

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)

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)

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)

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 Proje ct 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

The Plants of Qikiqtaruk. Part 1: The Shrubs

March 8, 2018March 11, 2018 | teamshrub

On a cold and distant island the stars of our science are sleeping. Buried under a thick winter blanket, Qikiqtaruk in winter is exactly what many people imagine when I say I work in the Arctic: awash with snowdrifts, locked in sea ice, home for polar bears and not a huge amount else.

Yet here on Team Shrub we study plants. Come the summer sun, green tendrils of life emerge from the snow and the hardy, beautiful and fascinating plant life of the tundra begins to grow. Diverse in the manner of tropical rainforests it may not be, but these cold lands are nonetheless brimming with more life than you might think, featuring old favourites that adorn the hills of Scotland to wacky monstrosities that seem to spring out of some primeval past.

In this series we will be exploring some of our favourite species from our most northern field site, starting with our namesake: the shrubs.

The Shrubs

What makes a shrub? Such has been the dinnertime conversation at many a Scottish Feast. In short: short. Woody. Multi-stemmed. Sometimes evergreen, sometimes deciduous, always beautiful.

The willows

Qikiqtaruk is home to a grand total of nine willow species. Not bad for an isolated Arctic island. The Salix genus dominates much of the upper shin-high canopy, though you can find yourself wading through some of the bigger fellows. Bjorn even reaches chest height. Deciduous, green-leaved, the willows add a certain magic to the tundra as their fluffy seed spirals in the air on a breezy day, while bright red catkins dot the tundra floor underfoot.

Salix pulchra

Possibly our favourite shrub on the island. This beautiful willow surely lives up to its name: long ruby stems and startling emerald-bright diamond leaves, giving Salix pulchra its common name, diamond-leaf willow. On Qikiqtaruk Salix pulchra grows mostly along the ground in large, clonal mats that creep between tussocks of cottongrass and shelter small white Stellaria flowers. It’s one to watch though, as further south this willow can reach well over head height. Here, where the weather is sheltered and nutrients seep from the permafrost, Salix pulchra grows faster, bigger, redder, standing out from its neighbours atop the palsas, while on the hilltops we have already seen a tripling in its canopy height since we first started recording in 1999.

Salix richardsonii

One of the giants of Qikiqtaruk, Salix richardsonii, or Richardson’s willow, is the most common tall shrub on the island. It grows mostly in wetter, sheltered areas such as river floodplains, where nutrients flow freely and life is as easy as it gets in this bastion of land in the Arctic ocean. Forming a dense, shrubby canopy of bright green leaves, Salix richardsonii nonetheless has a rather grizzled visage, giving it our nickname ‘Old Man Willow’. Twisted branches and flaking orange-brown bark, flecked with white specks of age or hardship. Fat, hairy stipules easily mark it apart from other willows. A canopy bully, Salix richardsonii is now dominating areas where it can grow, rapidly expanding in many parts of the island as the climate warms.

Orca_floodplain_02_desktop — Encroaching *Salix richardsoni* is taking over the Ice Creek watershed on Qikiqtaruk. This is one of the tallest willows on the island and elsewhere in the Arctic where in can dominate tundra landscapes with dense, metres tall and sometimes impenetrable thickets of willows.

Salix arctica

This small willow is a remarkable example of the success and resilience of plants in these cold lands. Salix arctica, the Arctic willow, has the most northernmost geographic range of any woody plant, reaching all the way to the north coast of Greenland at 83 degrees north. A ground-hugging, prostrate woody shrub, it spreads woody limbs akimbo, stretching out in all directions along the top of the permafrost. Thin stems become roots, become stems again and it advances clonally, covering much of the surface until it is impossible to tell where one plant begins and another ends. Even if the main “trunk” is destroyed or decays, the plant will not die: an attempt at immortality. Unlike many of the other dwarf willows, Salix arctica eschews the small leaves and catkins of its fellow family members, and sticks to the strategy of the taller shrubs that bigger is better. Big, fat leaves emerge from the brittle stems, which giant fluffy catkins can strike up from the ground surface several times taller than the rest of the plant. Unusually, on Qikiqtaruk even the leaves and stems of Salix arctica strike upwards for the sky, possibly a hybridisation of one kind or another, and can stretch up even as much as 20cm from the soil.

Salix reticulata

Just like Salix arctica, this dwarf willow hugs the floor with brittle stems and clonal creeping growth in all directions. The thick, leathery leaves of this plant give it its common name: net-leaved willow, which are criss-crossed and pocked with deep grooves. Once fallen in winter, these hardy leaves last, resisting decomposition and creating a crunching carpet underfoot.

DSCN4254 — The waxy leaves of the net-leaved willow, *Salix reticulata*. Like with Salix arctica, this is a very widely distributed willow found in much of the Arctic, the Alps and even in Scotland!

Salix polaris and Salix phlebophylla

The smallest of Qikiqtaruk’s willows, these two species take you down onto hands and knees to appreciate their tiny round leaves and stalk-like stems. Hugging the ground in dense mats, often on the drier sections of hillsides or edges of tussocks, I often have trouble telling these apart from leaves alone. Yet catch them right in the season, and the red catkins of the polar willow (Salix polaris) stand out as one of the brightest flashes of red on the tundra, flecks of delicate colour, blood-rich, that in a matter of days dissolve into white and wind.

Salix polaris2 — The bright red catkins, fluffy white seeds and verdant green leaves of *Salix polaris* often remind Isla of the colours of Christmas!

DSCN0042 2 — The tiny 2 – 4 mm long leaves of *Salix phlebophylla* covering the ground in a mat. Named for the skeleton leaves it ‘leaves’ behind year after year, this is one of the smallest willows in the world!

Salix glauca and Salix niphoclada

Two of the rarer tall shrubs on Qikiqtaruk, grey willow (Salix glauca) and snow willow (Salix niphoclada) can be a challenge to find, but occasionally stand out on the hillside where some seed has found its way to establishing. The grey-tinged haze of glauca willows sets them apart from the rest, while the sometimes rose-tinged stems and somewhat brighter leaves of niphoclada can cause us headaches when we search for Salix pulchra to sample. These two willows with green leaves covered in fine grey hairs and stems with a blue-green and waxy look to them can be indistinguishable when they have no visible catkins, which is much of the time, so they are often clumped together in our analyses.

Salix alaxensis

Finally, the Goliath of Arctic willows. Salix alaxensis grows tall and often somewhat spindly up on Qikiqtaruk, almost buddleia-like, as if it wants to reach the sun and doesn’t care how it gets there. The leaves are grey-green, but a bright, fluffy white underneath – lannate, densely villous or tomentose if you will. Did you know there are over 20 botanical terms for being hairy! Certainly easy to identify. We have only recently discovered Salix alaxensis, the Alaskan willow, on Qikiqtaruk, though since individuals are already well established, thus it must have been evading detection for many decades.

DSCN4807 — Isla with a particularly tall *Salix alaxensis* found on Qikiqtaruk in the summer of 2016 on a particularly buggy walk back from the retrogressive thaw slumps along the coast.

The birches

Betula nana and Betula glandulosa

If you spend much of your time tramping about the high hilltops of Scotland you may already be familiar with dwarf birch. Small, thickety and brittle, the dense brown stems of Betula nana or Betula glandulosa have snagged many a bootlace and tripped many a toe. Still, I love the Betulas for their leaves alone, some of the most perfect forms on the tundra. On Qikiqtaruk, Betula nana holds sway on flatter patches of hilltop; a low growing shrub that announces its presence as a darker green blur on the landscape, or from the waft of crushed Labrador tea underfoot, which tends to grow alongside birch. Unlike many other tundra sites, where Betula has run rampant as the climate warms, it so far seems to be losing out to the willows here, though in some places the dense, spotted branches form an impenetrable tangle across whole swathes of tundra. As for the difference between nana and glandulosa, the latter is taller, larger leaved, greater noduled. Or not, as the case may be – perhaps they are one species after all, marked apart not by genetics but simply variation.

Tundra tea

Rhododendron tomentosum

A hero of the Arctic smellscape, Rhododendron tomentosum is another favourite of ours. The shrub itself is part beautiful: white flowering baubles full of rich scent, rusted felt underside of leaves, and part ugly: the ash-black branches spindly, frail and commonly dead, dark leaves often matted and speckled, a formless shape creeping amongst better rivals. But altogether outstanding are the leaves themselves. Rhododendron tomentosum, marsh Labrador tea, may not quite have the glamour of its more grandiose and much less marshy southern cousin, but its leaves still bear the scent of a thousand tundra days; that unmistakable and uncapturable spice of terpene and midnight chlorophyll. This is a shrub that makes trait work bearable, and often one that prompts a pocket full of leaves for the walk home.

We are crazy about the fragrant smell of Labrador tea (*Rhododendron tomentosum*), *Ledum* (its old name), I got to get some!

The berry bearers

Arctostaphylos rubra (Arctous rubra)

One for the photo albums. A. rubra, or bearberry, is certainly one of the more iconic tundra shrubs due to its bright, Rudolph-red leaves that can stain the bare tundra at certain times of year. Another prostrate-growing shrub, the ovate, vein-y leaves can bear a resemblance to the leather coins of Salix reticulata when green, though are stretched and less waxy. It is when the winter begins to draw in that Arctostaphylos rubra sets itself apart as the leaves turn, and formerly invisible patches of bearberry shine out. Red too, the berries that hide in amongst the leaves: a food source for humans and wildlife alike, though their diuretic properties also lend themselves to herbal medicines and may explain the preponderance of stained bear poo littering the tundra in autumn. A closely related species, Arctous alpina, looks almost identical except for the red berries that turn black when ripe.

SAB-3336 — The bright red leaves of *Arctostaphylos rubra* in the autumn intermixed with some *Vaccinium uliginosum*.

SAB-5686 (1) — *Arctous alpina* the black berries of alpine or ‘black’ bearberry.

Vaccinium vitis-idea and Vaccinium uliginosum

Another set of plants that will be well known to hillwalkers, the Vaccinium genus is the main fruit bearer for local people and hungry researchers. The smallest, Vaccinium vitis-idea (Ligonberry, cranberry, cowberry – you name it!), carpets the surface with tiny, glossy leaves and even glossier red berries where cover is sparse and soils fairly dry. In places the leaves can turn to a deep, merlot red, or still drip with pink-white cowbell flowers. Harder to find on Qikiqtaruk, Vaccinium uliginosum (blueberry, bilberry etc.) rise higher from the undergrowth where soils are wetter, their berries blue, stems tough brown-green and leaves thinner and more leathery.

^B48AEEF2354C185B4DCB14D1DC227BB40973E76199E5742C7F^pimgpsh_fullsize_distr — *Vaccinium vitis-idaea* (and Empetrum nigrum). These Arctic cranberries make a delicious pie and jam if you have the patience to pick enough!

Rubus chamaemorus

Cloudberry, baked apple, or knotberry in England and averin in Scotland is best known on Qikiqtaruk as aqpik. This is one of the most prized of berries in this part of the world and when perfectly ripe is a delicious topping to pancakes, makes an excellent jam or is the perfect snack when stopping across the tundra. Quick to turn from unripe to rotten, finding your patch of cloudberries in season on Qikiqtaruk can be a challenge. It is rare out there, preferring the wetter habitats on the edges of ponds or in ice-wedge terrain.

Empetrum nigrum

A heathery-looking dwarf shrub that is equally at home in the Scottish Highlands, on mountaintops around the northern hemisphere, under conifer canopies of the boreal forest, and in vast swathes of tundra. Also a clonal shrub, Empetrum nigrum can form dense mats stretching uninterruptedly for meters, or even tens of meters. Its super-power is allelopathy: the leaves contain toxic chemicals which, when leached into the ground after the rain, hinder germination or growth of other plant species. Fun fact: the wood smells delicious when boiled in water (don’t ask, and probably don’t drink).

SAB-7546 (1).jpg — The bright leaves and black berries of *Empetrum nigrum*

The dwarf evergreens

Dryas integrifolia

The spear shaped leaves of the mountain avens is to me another iconic shape of the tundra. Whether forming into a sharp coniferous tip, or padded out into the more billowy, deciduous-tree form of Dryas octopetala, these OS map symbols of leaves are unrecognisable wherever they grow. But for many, Dryas integrifolia is best known for its flowers – the perfect white circles that polka-dot the tundra floor – and for the twisted filaments that are the phoenix seedhead, catching the sunrays and diffracting light and themselves across the tundra air.

Screenshot 2015-07-30 20.27.06 — Twisting filaments of *Dryas integrifolia* as the flowers set seed at the end of the summer.

Cassiope tetragona

Growing amongst the rocks and along the dry hillsides, the weeping white bells of Arctic bell heather are another distinctive site at the height of a tundra summer. A relative of the glorious purple heather of the Scottish hills, Cassiope tetragona is similarly small and woody, minute spear-shaped leaves wrapped tight into the stem, forming scaly round limbs. As the season turns, these stems gradually shift from green to orange-brown, giving the tundra an almost burnt look, flowers rusting away to leave the brittle seed heads proud to the wind.

Bonus: The uncategorised

Silene acaulis

If you’ve reached this far, well done for getting to the end. As a special bonus, I’ve included Silene acaulis, better known as moss campion. There is some confusion here as to whether Silene acaulis is best classed as a shrub or a forb. Silene as a genus refers to the campions, delicate flowers of field and rocks, all pink and white and herbaceous green leaves. Yet the harsher climates to which Silene acaulis has adapted produces a hardy, cushion-like shrub, past leaves compressed into woody stems. For myself, I class this bright plant as a forb, yet since I have seen it classed otherwise so under some schemes, it is worth a brief mention here.

Beyond confusion of classification, Silene acaulis is by no means one to be relegated to the bottom of any list. It grows where often nothing else will, building a bivouac out of its own sharp leaves against the elements. Within this thick shell, the plant can grow to engulf surrounding rocks occasionally supporting other tiny plants as they grow through chinks in its armour. Most spectacular are the pink-purple flowers, which at the height of the summer dot these minuscule mountains like dewdrops, or like pins in a pin-cushion. Silene acaulis is rare on Qikiqtaruk – the soft, undulating landscape means there are few surfaces too harsh for competitors. But I have seen one once, in passing, making a mental note to come back to sample it later. I have never found one since.

By Haydn, Sandra and Isla

Team Shrub – 2017 in Review

January 7, 2018March 23, 2018 | teamshrub

It was a big year for Team Shrub in 2017.

Like an Arctic willow in the tundra sunshine, we soaked up the beautiful rays of knowledge and delved further into the active layer of understanding. We grew taller and bushier as new members joined the team, and branched out into new areas of research. We bore fluffy research paper catkins, for our ideas and findings to be spread on the breeze of scientific discovery, and we put down new roots, to support, work with and learn from others in the future. And, of course, we had a thoroughly enjoyable time doing it all.

So as we look forward to all that 2018 brings, we are taking some time to revisit the year gone by, our favourite blog posts, and just how far we came in 2017.

Looking ahead: After a politically turbulent 2016, who could know what 2017 would hold? We spent the start of the year looking ahead with some trepidation, some anticipation and a good dose of excitement.

Hi, we're (a part of) Team Shrub. We may look epic in photos but really we're just #ActualLivingScientist s interested in tundra plants. pic.twitter.com/QxT99TMGNc

— Team Shrub (@TeamShrub) February 4, 2017

Decomposition in the cold. We kicked of a busy year as Haydn and Isla headed on a tour of Denmark and Sweden to attend the Oikos symposium on Decomposition in Cold Biomes (https://globalsoilbiodiversity.org/content/oikos-satellite-symposium). It was appropriate as the temperatures had dropped that week and it was quite snowy and chilly in beautiful Lund, Sweden as we chatted about cold-weather decomposition while cosy inside.

To Aberdeen. In March, it was our first Team Shrub trip to Aberdeen. We had a beach coding holiday and attended the Scottish Ecology, Environment and Conservation conference with Gergana, Haydn and Sandra presenting. We teamed up with Francesca Mancini from the Aberdeen Study Group to lead a coding workshop on efficiently analysing and visualising big-ish data in ecology.

17820161_10158791212870001_2027552931_o — Jumping for joy at the thought of more coding!

Glimpses of our future? By April, we had a wee glimpse into what 2017 might have in store for us through a traditional Bulgarian pastry dish with our fortunes inside!

Tundra Greening and Browning. Also in April, After a lab trip to Durham, Haydn’s home town, to talk permafrost for a day at Durham University. Andy and Isla went to the home of the Crucible, the land of snooker, the (real) region of Robin Hood, and the heartland of the only English football team named after a day of the week. (Also the home of the Arctic Monkeys – who incidentally haven’t spent much time in the Arctic). If you haven’t guessed yet, we went to the town of Sheffield for the ‘Arctic Browning Workshop’. The Arctic is warming and satellites have shown a fair bit of greening, but recent evidence suggests a decrease in the rates of increasing greenness at high latitudes and some browning events. The theme of the workshop was exploring that Arctic browning and what might be causing it.

A trip to the Highlands. Also in April and before the field season, Team Shrub headed to the highlands to show our visiting scholar Jeff Kerby and our summer drone pilot Will Palmer the beautiful countryside in our own backyard.

Traits. In June, Haydn, Anne and Isla headed the deep South of the UK to almost tropical temperatures at the University of Exeter. We were at the New Phytologist 39^th Symposium on Trait covariation. Whether in the symposium sessions or out on Dartmoor, we had a great time pondering plant traits from the tropics to the tundra.

Up at @dartmoornpa with the @NewPhyt #39NPS Symposium checking out what land use factors have influenced plant communities up on the moors. pic.twitter.com/cOBxRT2g2J

— Team Shrub (@TeamShrub) June 29, 2017

The Field Season. Suddenly it was the field season. Team Shrub divided into two teams: Team Drone and Team Kluane to concurrently conduct our data collection on either end of the Yukon. From drones, tea bags, phenology, stories, sounds, smells, feasts, birding, to reunions many adventures were had and a ton of data was collected. We managed to capture over 100,000 images or more than two TB of data with our drones, to dig out over 300 tea bags from the ground, and to fill several field books or iPad spreadsheets with numbers and notes. It was a productive period and we are still working away on processing the data.

New beginnings. This September marked the start of Mariana’s and Gergana’s PhD research. Mariana is modelling how plant species distributions will shift under climate change at two extreme biomes – the tundra and the savannah. Gergana is quantifying the effects of land use change on global and local patterns of species richness, abundance and composition. Sam, Claudia and Matt have joined Team Shrub for their honours dissertations. The data presents will soon be rolling as new student projects come together and our first three Team Shrub PhD students finalise their dissertations over the coming months.

IMG_20170911_190446 — First day of being a PhD student for Mariana and Gergana!

Coding. Coding Club celebrated its first birthday! Coding is a big part of our work on Team Shrub, we use coding in our research, teaching, our lives in general… where would we be without it. Perhaps a bit less constantly frustrated, but also without those moments of glory when everything runs error free! We even made up a fictional journal for the Conservation Science course that Isla organises and Gergana and Mariana are tutors on. You can find out more about AQMCS (Advanced quantitative methods in conservation science) here – Same data – different results? ConSci 2017 introduces AQMCS!

We are very keen to expand our team and create a rich collection of #rstats tutorials, get in touch if you would like to contribute a tutorial or if you have r scripts ready, we can help you turn them into tutorials! #EAB2017 #PhDchat @MethodsEcolEvol @BritishEcolSoc @BES_QE_SIG pic.twitter.com/tzD8mjRf1R

— Coding Club (@our_codingclub) December 14, 2017

Conservation in the Cairngorms. In early October, members of Team Shrub took our annual pilgrimage up to the highlands of Scotland for the weekend fieldtrip on the Conservation Science course. With all sorts of weather, mountains, drones, delicious cake and an epic music jam, fun was had by all!

Learning about conservation in a majestic landscape

Biodiversity, the New North and the science/policy interface. Also in the month of October, along with keen undergraduates from the Conservation Science course, we went along to the Spotlight on Scotland’s Biodiversity conference. For the undergraduates involved, it was their first ever conference. It was pretty inspiring to see the next generation of conservation scientists getting the opportunity to talk with the Scottish experts in the field. A few weeks later in November, we headed to the “Scotland and the New North” policy forum, where Isla got to hold the door for Nicola Sturgeon! A new focus looking Northward for Scotland could mean new things for Team Shrub research in future.

What will Scotland’s new focus northward mean for Team Shrub?

Also in November, Mariana attended two policy-related events: the EEB Changing Landscapes conference in Edinburgh and the BES “Understanding science policy in Scotland“ workshop in Stirling. The first was a high-level event where major conservation organisations discussed the future of nature in Europe; while the second zoomed into Scotland to understand how science can feed into the policy-making process.

Writing. In November, Team Shrub had our first official writing retreat. We have been talking about having a writing retreat for years and finally things came together with a chance to focus on our writing goals, away from distractions. We were so inspired that we are planning on having a residential writing retreat sometime in the Spring of 2018 – where we can go from one day of super high productivity to hopefully a long weekend.

One day, 12 795 words: The Team Shrub Writing Retreat! How did we do it? To find out more read on… #AcWri #PhDchat https://t.co/5AqTClHVya

— Team Shrub (@TeamShrub) December 27, 2017

Dual Conferences. In December, Team Shrub headed to two big conferences happening at the same time! You can read about our parallel conferences experiences here. At Ecology Across Borders in Ghent, Belgium, Anne, Mariana and Gergana joined over 1500 ecologists to take in lots of exciting science, go to workshops, meet new people or catch up with old friends. Gergana and Anne gave talks, in sessions happening at the same time!

Best talk of today goes to @annebeejay. Amazing photos, excellent story about change in tundras and a very enthusiastic speaker #EAB2017

— Michiel Jorissen (@MichielJorissen) December 12, 2017

At Ecology Across Borders, we also led a Coding Club workshop, titled “Transferring quantitative skills among ecologists”. We shared our approach to teaching coding to keen participants from the conference. All of our workshop materials are online: Transferring quantitative skills among scientists. You can also check out the Coding Club website to find all of our tutorials as well as information on how you can join our team and organise workshops at your home institution.

#EAB2017 Workshops done! Quite amazed by the work of the @our_codingclub seems they've found a very nice working system for students of all degrees to find and give support in coding! Nice work really!

— Marco Benucci (@MBen_15) December 12, 2017

The other half of Team Shrub, Isla, Sandra, Haydn, Jakob, Andy and Jeff went to Quebec in Canada for the penultimate ArcticNet meeting – Arctic Change 2017. You can check out the daily round-up blog posts about the conference here – day 1, day 2, day 3 and days 4 and 5. A pinnacle moment for Team Shrub was Haydn and Jakob winning the top two prizes from the conference elevator pitch contest!

Congrats to #TeamShrub Haydn Thomas and Jakob Assmann for taking the top two awards for student elevator pitch at #ArcticNet2017! #Colleagues #TeamShrub #UKinArctic #BritishEcolSoc @UKSINet @UKinCanada @Arctic_Office pic.twitter.com/D1iyd8RBuT

— Jeff Kerby (@JTKerby) December 15, 2017

Rejections. When we drafted our goals for 2017, we also set out our rejection goals. The idea behind rejection goals is that if we never get rejected, then maybe we aren’t aiming high enough. We decided to collectively aim for 50 rejections. So how did we do? We counted 23 rejections out of our goal of 50. Now perhaps we didn’t manage to count every single rejection this year, some of them we would rather just forget, but can we count the fact that we didn’t achieve our rejections as one additional fail? Then technically we are at 24 out of 50?

Team_Drone — Team Drone on Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island in the Northern Yukon.

Team_Kluane — Team Kluane at Outpost Station in the Southern Yukon.

Outreach. At Our Dynamic Earth, we shared the excitement of using drones for science. At the Edinburgh Science Festival, we explored art as a way to communicate science. We put together the photography exhibit “Arctic from Above” and developed collaborations with Simon Sloan, Archie Crofton to explore how art and data interface and ASCUS looking at tundra shrubs as time machines. Then at Curiosity forest, part of Explorathon 2017, we used drone simulators and cool dendrochronology samples to learn about how to study Arctic change.

There were also many jolly meals and trips to the pub. Many heated debates as we discussed science in lab meeting or over lunch. There were many moments of coding frustration followed by a sense of achievement as we worked through our scientific goals.

Team Shrub Lab Meeting 2 — One of many lab meetings!

So those were some of the Adventures for Team Shrub in 2017.

What will 2018 hold? We already have some exciting things to share with you over the coming months, and many more in the pipeline. Hopefully we will also have some fantastically fluffy catkins this year: keep your eye on the breeze.

So from all on Team Shrub, a very happy new year and we look forward to sharing with you, working with you, and learning from you in the year to come.

By Gergana, Isla and Haydn

The turning of the seasons

July 24, 2017August 30, 2017 | teamshrub

It’s a hot day. The sun is beating down on the damp ground, freshly cleared of melted snow, and beneath the wet surface the ice begins to retreat.

Nothing too unusual, except that it’s the middle of April, and our field site is an island off the Arctic coast of Canada. Thirty years or so previously things would still have been buried under a thick blanket of winter snow, but as the Arctic heats up, spring is advancing.

One of the big questions we are trying to answer is how an earlier spring alters tundra plants. Are they flowering earlier? Does that mean growing seasons are longer? What about different species, do some do better than others? Are there knock-on effects for pollinators, birds, caribou? Can we predict how things will change in the future?

All big questions, all with big consequences for the shape and colour, the sights and smells, the ebb and flow of life for plants, animals and people alike in these cold northern lands. We are faced with one big problem though: come the spring, there’s no-one yet around to measure anything.

But, to butcher a quote, we have a cunning plan. Three, in fact.

1. Eyes in the sky

While we may still be enjoying the cherry blossom on the Meadows and the blustery showers blowing in from the North Sea in April, our field sites are still being watched from above. Satellites give us a great deal of information, all year round, that we can use to track the timing of life (phenology) across the Arctic.

QHI 2017-07-07 TERRA True Colour Composite — Qikiqtaruk locked up in sea ice this spring

One approach is to use the ‘normalised difference vegetation index’ (or NDVI for short) to measure the ‘greenness’ of the landscape as the spring unfolds. That works well enough, but the resolution is coarse, and clouds are causing a lot of trouble (no data) particularly in the cloudy summers of the Arctic.

Part of our research aims to link satellite data with ground-based observations. We do this using drones to collect high-resolution imagery and NDVI measurements at the landscape level: ‘bridging the gap’ between coarse resolution images from space, and very detailed monitoring data from small-scale vegetation plots. This way we get a much better understanding of what is going on when we’re not at our field sites, and at all the other places around the Arctic we will never get the chance to visit.

2. Boots on the ground

One of our local breweries has recently started a series called ‘Advancement Through Collaboration‘, teaming up all sorts of different groups to create something new. We try to take the same approach to our own science, whether it is sharing data and ideas with other Arctic researchers around the world, or creating artwork out of shrub rings.

When it comes to phenology, we are incredibly lucky to be able to collaborate with Yukon Parks rangers on Qikiqtaruk – folks who not only welcome us to their lands each summer, but provide insight into the changes in the tundra in ways we never could. Three times each week from late April to early September, every year since 2001, the rangers make the half an hour hike up to sets of long-term monitoring plots to record life stages in three tundra species. They diligently record when their first leaves appear, when they flower, and when they die. Overall, this is one of the longest continuous phenology monitoring datasets in the tundra!

SAB-6079 — Checking up on the long-term phenology plots with Ricky-Joe and Sam

With data like this, we can track how plants are responding to change in much more detail. We can also compare different species: are there winners and losers? And we have the data to link things across scale: the information to build the bridge up from individual plants to the whole biome.

Gergana and Will collecting detailed growth and phenology measurements

3. Fly on the wall

It’s never going to pull in the TV audiences of Big Brother, but a bunch of 24 hour cameras trained on Arctic plants really floats our boat. Last year we installed a couple of phenocams – basically time-lapse cameras – to track in more detail how plant communities are changing over the growing season.

This year we were fortunate enough to secure some additional funding from the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) to expand the project. Hugely exciting for us, we will now be able to track vegetation communities across the island, scaling up our findings from the long-term monitoring plots to the landscape scale.

A phenocam standing tall above the Arctic tundra on Qikiqtaruk

Even more exciting, we are using the cameras to link differences in phenology across the Arctic through our ‘common garden’ experiment in the south of the Yukon. Here we have planted willows collected from across the Yukon to examine whether different populations will respond to change in different ways. One of the biggest differences we have seen so far is that northern populations seem to stick to their ‘home’ growing season: they leaf out late and senesce early compared to southern individuals of the same species growing just 50cm away.

Southern Salix richardsonoo

Northern Salix richardsonoo

Does the difference in senescence timing explain the difference in growth in these two willows? Willows are of the same species, collected as cuttings in 2013 from a southern tundra site (left) and northern tundra site (right).

At present we can only track phenology changes in the garden thanks to input from more wonderful collaborators – Sian Williams and the folks from Icefield Discovery working down at Kluane Lake. With our new phenocams we can for the first time track differences in phenology over the whole year, not just in our experiment, but at the sites where willows were collected! We think this is the last piece in the puzzle to be able to answer exactly what is going on – whether willows have responded to new conditions, or whether their genes mean that old habits die hard. Our phenocams in the common garden are now installed, and we’ll be installing the remainder at our remote field sites as soon as the summer expeditions get underway. Watch this space!

By Haydn

—

Haydn is the recipient of a Dudley Stamp Memorial Award on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

Qikiqtaruk Book Club Part I: Ecological communities in the Arctic

July 22, 2017September 13, 2017 | teamshrub

Qikiqtaruk is a beautiful and inspirational place – science chats are particularly special when you can see, feel, hear and even smell your study system change as the growing season progresses. Out during phenology data collection yesterday, we saw that the spring flowers are fading and seed dispersal is beginning… summer is well under way. And this year, in addition spotting awesome wildlife, admiring magnificent sunsets and informally chatting about science in our remote Arctic field site, we have also started a book club!

Over the past year, Mark Vellend’s “The Theory of Ecological Communities” prompted the start of several book clubs around the world. Mark is a collaborator of ours and Isla’s former postdoc advisor, so we have been eagerly awaiting our chance to read and discuss his book. We didn’t initially join the book club, but we did manage to stay away from major spoilers and now that we are on Qikiqtaruk and away from the distractions of the world beyond the island (and as close to the plant communities we study as could be) this seems like just the right time to start our very own book club!

We read the first two chapters of Mark’s book after a day of putting hundreds of tea bags in the ground for a decomposition experiment out across the landscape in the different ecological communities here on the island from flood plain willows to dry grass and tussock sedge, and here are our thoughts!

What is decomposition like in this wet tangle of leaves?

The first question that Mark asks in his book is:

“What is community ecology and how does one define an ecological community?”

Gergana has also been concurrently reading Anne Magurran’s “Measuring Biological Diversity”, which also discusses the definition of an ecological community or species assemblage, so taking what we learned from the two books, there are many ways to define a community, and it’s rarely clear where are community ends and another begins…

Unless you are on a remote Arctic island! Here on Qikiqtaruk, there are several very distinct ecological communities – in particular the so-called Herschel and Komakuk vegetation types. They are very easy to spot when you are out walking around across the landscape or from a drones-eye view from 50 – 100 metres in the air. The ecological communities are so distinct up here that it is the only place that Isla has been to where she truly believes vegetation classification is possible.

The Herschel (left) and Komakuk (right) vegetation types

The Herschel communities are older landforms (we think) and dominated by tussocks of the sedge Eriophorum vaginatum, whereas the Komakuk communities likely have undergone disturbances such as active layer detachments, more active cryoturbation and erosion and are dominated by forb species, grasses and the dwarf willow Salix arctica. There are very few species shared between them, and it’s virtually impossible to confuse the two. But why are there such distinct ecological communities in the same extreme Arctic environment occupying the same upland soils with the same overall species pool that are undergoing the same types of selection pressures? This remains a mystery to us.

Sedge and willow dominated Herschel

Grass and dryas dominated Komakuk

Point framing in the Herschel and Komakuk vegetation types. The two locations are about 200m apart

How did these two communities come to be? We think that perhaps it was the different disturbance facilitated the establishment of the younger Komakuk community. But what is keeping the communities separate today? As demonstrated by the abundance of bare ground patches in Komakuk, some level of disturbance continues, but there are a few, not many, but still some areas of Komakuk where Eriophorum tussocks are making a comeback – we probably won’t live to see it in these long-lived and slow growing plant communities, but maybe at some point, the Herschel community will again dominate over Komakuk in less disturbed parts of the landscape. But on the other hand, with longer growing seasons and warming autumn and winter temperatures perhaps different disturbances are on the increase in this part of the climate-limited tundra biome.

Grins and bare ground in the Komakuk vegetation community

Mark Vellend would have us believe that four factors alone shape the ecological communities that we see on the landscape including: 1) selection, 2) drift, 3) speciation and 4) dispersal. And that within these four factors are many other forces at play such as biological interactions such as competition, mutualisms, herbivory, disease, etc.

On Qikiqtaruk we have found evidence of biotic interactions such as plant-plant competition and allelopathy potentially influencing the growth and germination of seeds and see signs of herbivory from the muskox and caribou, lemmings and voles down to insects, but it must be more than just biotic interactions creating these super distinct ecological communities up here in the Canadian Arctic. Can the following chapters of the book “Theory of Ecological Communities” shed light on the ecological mystery that is the plant communities of Qikiqtaruk? We shall see, so stay tuned.

DSCN1700 — How does competition affect seed germination in the tundra?

We are looking forward to our next book club meeting. Until then, we will be collecting data and thinking about how the four high-level processes central to the Theory of Ecological Communities (selection, drift, speciation and dispersal) are influencing the patterns we see in the Herschel and Komakuk communities at our remote Arctic field site.

By Gergana and Isla

p.s. Gergana also found the acknowledgements section very inspirational – it’s always great to read about a community (of people) that supports one another and collectively works to advance science! The University of Queensland, in the sub tropics of the city of Brisbane Australia where the majority of the book was written, was also where Gergana spent a year of her undergrad – such a great place to think and write about ecology! And such a different place ecologically from Qikiqtaruk in the Canadian Arctic.

—

This blog post was written on Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island in the Western Canadian Arctic as part of Team Shrub’s island book club, aiming to read and discuss Mark Vellend’s 2016 book “The Theory of Ecological Communities” while we are out in the field, right next to the communities we study. Team Shrub are a group of plant ecologists who often work in high-latitude tundra ecosystems on topics in community ecology.

The team’s book club discussions are summarised in four blog posts:

Fieldwork Milestones

July 20, 2017August 30, 2017 | teamshrub

The icy waters that welcomed us to Qikiqtaruk are long gone – past are the beautiful sunsets with light reflecting off big chunks of ice, and instead we now see dark blue or grey waters and occasionally even beluga whales swimming by. It’s a great time of the summer, with some flowers still in bloom, while others are setting seeds. The sandpiper and plover chicks are growing up, and we have been spending lots of time out in the field – through sunshine, wind and fog, the data are rolling in!

Now that we have already celebrated our two week and three weekiversaries on the island and are approaching a month on the island, we thought we’d reflect on our fieldwork milestones so far!

21^st June

We celebrated solstice by arriving on the island, checking out the vast expanse of sea ice in the water and exploring our home for the summer and all the breeding bird species with Park Biologist Cameron Eckert.

1^stJuly (Happy Canada Day!)

Canada Day dinner with the rangers – for some of us it was our first Canada Day ever and it was the big 150 this year, and we all had a great time sharing stories and enjoying a tasty feast on a day celebrating the confederation of peoples including all the original people of this vast country.

2^nd July

Wildlife sightings – some of our favourites include a herd of 25 caribou with calves, the four majestic muskoxen, a short-eared owl flying over camp, black guillemots riding the waves, waders dashing around on the spit, and belugas and bowheads off the cliffs from Collinson Head (14^thJuly).

4^th July (Happy Independence Day!)

Six new phenocams are all set up and hopefully well enough to resist any muskox encounters (none so far)! It will be great to see all the photos stitched together at the end of the season from May to August, thanks to the rangers setting things up for us before we arrived. The ongoing on-the-ground phenology observations have also been no less exciting, though they are a bit more of a pain to collect when the mosquitos are at their most ferocious like yesterday!

6^th July

The first twisting of the filaments of the Dryas (mountain avens) in our phenology monitoring! We’ve also been counting how many flowers there are in each of the phenology plots and we are now past peak flower time – now there will be fewer and fewer pretty coloured flowers, but watching the Dryas seed heads develop and twist round and round and the fluffy flowers of the Eriophorum take flight is beautiful too!

7^th July

A Team Shrub record for largest area surveyed with drones in one day – 3,000,000 meters squared. We now have 193,735 images (as of 15th July) and counting for this field season so far. As soon as the winds die down the drones are out – with three pilots in the field, there has been lots of drone action – different drones, different scales of investigation, different spectral bands, which together will hopefully give us a comprehensive view of vegetation change across the tundra.

8^th July

Our first group photo (minus Isla who hasn’t arrived yet)! Team Drone surrounded by tundra flowers and arctic willows.

10^thJuly

A milestone in the making – surveying all of our sites with GNSS (a type of GPS system) – a super precise way to know exactly where all of our markers and plots are. Around a week ago, we met with representatives of Canada Parks and it was very cool to learn that they also use GNSS technology when mapping historical sites – always interesting to see how people use the same technology in different ways.

11^th July

Perhaps the most exciting milestone of all (at least for Isla): Isla has arrived!!! I have finally made it to the island after five days of trying. Finally, on Tuesday the 11^th of July my float plane successfully touched down in Pauline Cove as a seal curiously watched on. Most amazing of all was that the “freshies” the fresh fruit and vegetables that had been sitting in a hot plane for more than two days were actually for the most part fine and still as fresh and delicious as vegetables tend to be in the North.

14^th July (Happy Bastille Day!)

Another Team Shrub record of 50 drone flights in one day! And, the excitement of finding a two-way radio in the tundra, several days after it was last seen.

15^th July

Active layer depth has reached its highest value yet at 68cm this week! Strong winds delayed some of our initial drone flying, but there have been lots of ground observations made. The metal probe we’re using for the active layer depth measurements is also a pretty good walking pole! And when dragged along the ground sounds a bit like that noise from that horror movie “The Shining’.

Every day

Awe-inspiring sunsets – Qikiqtaruk is beautiful at all times of the day, but the evening light makes it all extra special! There are also many ittle moments of beauty in the field – be it a particularly fluffy patch of cottongrass, backlight lupines, a family of ptarmigans walking by, or just the sheer grandeur of the landscape, it’s been great to stop during data collection for a second to take it all in.

So at nearly one month in there are many milestones to go. What will we see or experience next? Only time will tell…

By Gergana, Isla and Team Drone

Deep in the shrubs – birding the willows on Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk

July 7, 2017July 17, 2017 | teamshrub

Team Shrub guest blog – Cameron D. Eckert

It was little more than a flash in the willows, just for an instant and then vanishing, but one that stopped me in my tracks. Could that have been a hummingbird?

Qikiqtaruk is rapidly changing, and nowhere is that more evident than in the vegetation that thinly covers the island. A warming climate has brought earlier green-up, shifts in plant composition, and the expansion of shrubs. Perhaps the question I’m asked most often is how are these changes affecting the bird populations? Many bird species thrive in shrubs, so could more willows be good news? Well, it’s not that simple. Other bird species, such as American Golden-Plover and Ruddy Turnstone, prefer sparse vegetation and bare ground – and these Arctic nesting shorebirds, which face stressors throughout their ranges, have declined sharply in recent decades. Still I’m intrigued by the influence that shrub expansion may be having on Herschel Island’s bird diversity. To explore this question, I now bird the willows along east Ice Creek as part of my regular morning surveys.

East_Ice_Creek_Herschel_YT_5Aug2016_CameronEckert — A lush expanse of *Salix richardsonii* along east Ice Creek on 5 August 2016. Photo C. Eckert.

Ice Creek, on the northeast corner of Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park off the Yukon’s Arctic coast, flows with melting snow and ice from the surrounding rolling tundra through an alluvial fan at the base of Simpson Point, and into Pauline Cove on the Beaufort Sea. The east tributary of Ice Creek features some of the island’s biggest patches of willow (Salix richardsonii) – mostly below knee height and sparse enough that I can easily walk through the willows along the creek. Green-up in mid-June rapidly transforms this brown tundra valley into a beautiful green world of willows and wildflowers. And there are birds.

The White-crowned Sparrow, an uncommon breeder on the island, is the species expected to be most responsive to willow expansion. Their clear and distinctive song makes them easy to detect, and this past June I observed two pairs nesting along east Ice Creek, with another singing on west Ice Creek, and one more on the alluvial fan. However, it’s not clear if the population here has changed – it was known to be uncommon in the mid-1980s, though long-term breeding bird surveys conducted by Park Rangers on Simpson Point hint at an upward trend.

WCSP_Herschel_YT_18June2016_CameronEckert — A male White-crowned Sparrow in full song on the alluvial fan, 18 June 2016. Photo C. Eckert.

Common and Hoary redpolls are also common in the willows along east Ice Creek. Typical of finches, their numbers are highly variable from year to year. Here they’re not dependent on shrubs for breeding, and I’ve found a few nests in drift logs along the beach at Simpson Point. This past June, a pair of Hoary Redpolls greeted me on almost every hike up east Ice Creek. Their chittering songs and calls, and habit of collecting bits of fluff were signs of pair-bonding and nesting building.

HORE_Herschel_YT_10June2017_CameronEckert — A male Hoary Redpoll surveys its breeding territory along east Ice Creek on 10 June 2017. Photo C. Eckert.

My forays through the shrubs have yielded surprises. I’ve come across small numbers of Yellow Warblers and Yellow-rumped Warblers – common breeders on the North Slope mainland, but very rare on Qikiqtaruk. I’ve never heard one singing, and they seem fully occupied with feeding – wanderers to the island, but not breeders. In June I also spotted a female Varied Thrush, just the third island record, feeding along east Ice Creek; as well as an American Robin which is rare but regular on the island.

YWAR_Herschel_YT_17June17_CameronEckert — Female Yellow Warbler, a rare visitor to Herschel Island, feeding among the willows along east Ice Creek on 17 June 2017. Photo C. Eckert.

It was last year, on 19 June 2016, that I found the bird which would firmly enshrine east Ice Creek in my daily routine. Walking through willows along the creek, I flushed a warbler that flashed bright yellow undersides, an olive-green back, and dark grey hood. This was an Oporonis-type warbler, and the three possible species would all be an extreme rarity here; so when it landed I focused on its face to check for white eye crescents or lack thereof to confirm which species. It perched low in the willows for just a few seconds and I could see bright white crescents above and below the eye. The first MacGillivray’s Warbler for Herschel Island – 1000 km north of its breeding grounds.

MACW_Herschel_YT_19June2016_CameronEckert_comp — A male MacGillivray’s Warbler, 1000 km north of its range, deep in the willows along east Ice Creek on 19 June 2016. Inset shows close-up of the skulking warbler. Photo C. Eckert.

Exactly a year later, on 19 June 2017, I was again walking through the willows along east Ice Creek. Watching, listening, and totally focused, when a tiny greenish flash caught my eye. It darted low to the ground along the edge of the willows. A hummingbird? Inconceivable! Over the next 15 minutes I saw the bird just three times and only for a few seconds, but it’s extremely small size (even for a hummer) and colouration (green back, pale buffy front) immediately brought to mind Calliope Hummingbird. It flew low to the ground, and was extremely hard to spot in the myriad willows. I decided to run back to camp and get my hummingbird feeder (yes, I brought a hummingbird feeder to the Arctic).

I was back and had the feeder set up in the willows within 35 minutes. I sat quietly and waited. Then by chance I looked over my shoulder and saw the hummer perched about 25 metres away. I got a great view and snapped my first photo. Then miraculously, the hummer did a fly by, circled around, and perched in the open on top of a nearby willow. I got great views in full sunlight, and much better photos. It vanished again into the willows. I carefully scanned the foliage, and there it was, just two metres away, but well hidden. I lined up a view through the branches and took a few more photos. Moments later, it flew again and appeared to be feeding on willow flowers. Then it disappeared. That was my last view of the hummer, and it never went to the feeder. My initial impression was confirmed – this was an adult female Calliope Hummingbird, the first for the Yukon and the Arctic. A staggering 1,800 km north of its breeding range.

CAHU_Herschel_Is_YT_19June17_CameronEckert_1 — Herschel Island is well-known for rare birds, but still, this adult female Calliope Hummingbird, 1,800 km north of its breeding range, along east Ice Creek on 19 June 2017 was a total shocker. Photo C. Eckert.

CAHU_Herschel_YT_19June17_CameronEckert_2 — And there she was was – the Calliope Hummingbird perched just two metres away, but well-hidden in the willows along east Ice Creek. 19 June 2017. Photo C. Eckert.

It would be simplistic to dismiss such rarities as inconsequential, as their occurrences may well be early indicators of changing bird populations. Over time these well-documented records can reveal unexpected patterns. I’ll continue exploring Ice Creek, tallying the familiar birds, and carefully watching for the next surprise visitor to Herschel Island.

Cameron Eckert is an ecologist who has studied the birds, wildlife, and ecosystems of the Yukon’s North Slope and Herschel Island for the past 25 years. As Conservation Biologist with Yukon Parks, he works with Qikiqtaruk Park Rangers to coordinate the island’s ecological monitoring program.

Herschel Island bird observations can be viewed or downloaded at www.ebird.org.