Changing Rivers

I wrote this post about changes that MBL scientist Linda Deegan has seen on the Kuparuk River.

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The Ground Beneath Our Feet

We spent Monday slogging through very wet tussock tundra to get to the Toolik River thermokarst, an area where permafrost has melted, causing the soil to collapse. The group took water samples from the Toolik River upstream and downstream from the thermokarst. These samples determine how much material the thermokarst is adding to the river, [...]

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Measuring How Nutrients Change Rivers

Arctic waters are generally nutrient poor. This means small amounts of nutrients can have large ecological effects. One of the first long-term experiments to investigate the effects of increased nutrients in Arctic fresh waters took place in the Kuparuk River near Toolik Field Station. Small amounts of phosphorus have been added to the Kuparuk each [...]

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Arctic Shrubs and Climate Change

On Saturday, our first full day at Toolik, we began our introduction to arctic research with Gus Shaver, a scientist with the MBL’s Ecosystems Center who studies the effects of increased shrub cover on the microclimate, soils and vegetation of Arctic tundra. By comparing fertilized (in photo) and unfertilized plots, researchers can determing what effect [...]

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