May Days in the Bogs

Posted by Kim

     

What is this?  A new post?  Nothing since last July?   What the what is THAT about?

New computers sometimes don't play nice

Well, I'm here to tell you, things have happened, and things are happening now.  Caitlyn and I are just finishing up the start of the Summer 2019 season and it is good to be back doing field work.  Not too many stories (we've seen snow and bears and monster mosquitoes and some kind of Mustelid and almost hit a Kestrel and saw hawks and ravens galore and broke through ice and changed out 72 resin tubes and set 1500 crank wires), but we surely have had a productive time.  Life is somewhat allergy-ridden here for me in Fort Mac as I type, but we are off to Edmonton by tomorrow eve.  Things just keep on moving.   

Here are some pics:

Would Kel be proud?  mmmmm 

My First Bog!

Taking a new perspective on the lovely bogs of Northern Alberta, I am a Villanova undergrad helping out with the project this summer.  Eric and I were wide eyed and eager for our trip up North, ready to get our hands and our boots a little dirty.  After cleaning, organizing, and analyzing in the lab we were very excited to see the real thing. 

After a couple easy flights we landed in Edmonton and headed up to Athabasca.  Excited by the saltwater pool at the hotel, we had a fun night before the real work began.  Then, the next day we headed to Athabasca University, prepping for all our sites: constructing the sippers, cutting boardwalk pieces, and getting all the materials we needed.  Then, after a long day at the garage, we got a good night of sleep and headed up to Fort Mac.  On the way, a site near Conklin was scouted, but to no avail.  We did get to see our first bear of the trip (kind of accidentally) as we were turning around to plan what to do next.  It ended up being a day off due to the new site not being what we were looking for (sigh).  So, the true fieldwork had to wait one more day.  We got up to Fort Mac, a little confused at how such a bustling town can be this far North, but actually really liked the town's unique charm.

Boots and Bogs

So, Friday comes and we head to MacKay to tackle the first site.  With Kel's and Kim's crash course in everything bog related, we were ready for veg collection.  We quickly learned the difference in root color of Fuscum and Capillifolium, had to scrape off Ledum from our gloves (the new growth is pretty sticky in early June), and tried not to get too stuck in one of the wetter bogs we went to over the week.  While it took some practice and quite a few questions, Eric and I quickly became pros at spotting all 10 species we were gathering.  With the help of SIU, Caitlyn, Yev, Kristen, Kim. and Kel, we cruised through veg and water collections at MacKay and then went to JPH4 where we got that finished pretty quickly as well.  I had never been in a bog before so I got quite a few pictures after I figured out my best path so that I wouldn't get stuck.

Eric at MacKay

The Mighty Kel

The next day was our first new site day.  We arrived at the site which we named Kearl and loaded up as much as we could to take out closer to the site.  As Kim mentioned, we had already seen a bear on the way and it was pretty clear that this is one of the more "off the beaten path" sites.  It was a hot and steamy day so we got to work right away to hopefully finish a bit early.  We hammered a lot of nails, pounded in posts, and set up everything pretty quickly on the site.  Then, with the help of SIU we struggled through getting veg for the sites (a couple of the samples were hard to find at some of the plots) and started packing up to get back to Fort Mac.  That's when Jeremy called us about the bear.  With this being the first wild bear I had seen while I am not in a car, you would think I would be cautious and careful, but no, I pulled out my phone to get a good video of the bear instead.  After a bit I realized, wow that was dumb, and pulled out my bear spray instead.  But, the bear sauntered on by and left us alone.

JPH4

The last three sites, McMurray Bog, Anzac, and Horse Creek, all went without too many problems and the rest of the week was pretty smooth sailing.  McMurray Bog was pretty dry on the walk out there and no one went for an unintended swim, the rain wasn't too strong at Anzac, and the Horse Creek setup went quickly now that we were pros at setting up a site. 
I was honestly a bit sad to leave Fort Mac, but was excited by the thought of our nice hotel beds waiting for us back in Athabasca.  We then made quick work of wrapping things up and headed back to Philly and the lab.  Overall, I know both Eric and I learned a lot being out in the field as well as had a good time with it.  Other than a few less horseflies, no complaints from me.  I can't wait to get back up there next month!!

The Bear!!

A new fan of peatland bogs,

Spencer

 Posted by Kim

Black Spruce cones form in clumps high up on branches near the tops of trees.  They are considered serotinous. That is to say, these specialized trees depend on fire to help release their seeds to the world.  The trees bear slowly-opening cones for 25 - 75 - 100 years until a fire sweeps through to rapidly open the cones to disperse their seeds to the charred peat.   They have evolved to survive in a world in which fire is expected – and up here, that return interval is estimated at just over 120 years.   You would be hard pressed to find spruce trees older here in the bogs of Alberta, and we can tell you where a few are, but they are rare rare rare.  We also think that the fire return interval is likely shrinking.  Fires are predicted to increase in intensity and to happen more often. This is all part of the climate story of the world.  

The Fort Mac fire has recently been categorized as being held, and it has surely released a multitude of black spruce seeds – many in our study sites.  It has also burned a bit of our equipment and more importantly, some beautiful landscape is now black and crunchy. The town itself seems to be recovering as well.  They don’t let you into the residential areas that were nearly completely demolished, but the town seems to be chugging along with most things back open.

 

I just spent a few days there with Caitlyn and Wendy and we rolled along the truck-filled roads with our aim on science. We breathed in bad smelling air and watched stacks billow brown tinged ‘steam’.  The big business of oil sands was back up and running.

At Anzac, the first site we visited, the constant buzz of bugs was punctuated by helicopters carrying water bucket after water bucket to nearby hotspots.  Bright green Cloud Berry leaves and Labrador Tea plants were starkly tender on the charred peat; and a month post fire,  where I stood, life was returning.

Along with Anzac, McMurray Bog was also partially burned with the Black Spruce taking the brunt of the damage at both sites. Another site, Mildred, was a total burn.  Two other sites were left unscathed and wait for the next fire to open their cones.  The science moves on. 

These bogs are resilient and I am glad to see that life springs anew sometimes even because of great tragedy.  We will return again in a few weeks and I'm sure we will find new and green freshness springing from darkness.

Science On

Thanks, Kelly, for your great update yesterday!   Athabasca has been our home for a long long time and I look forward to joining Kelly and Hope on Tuesday to start our field season.  Our hearts go out to the people of Fort McMurray, many of whom still do not know if they have homes still standing or a place to return to.  They all wait for word that they can head back to Fort McMurray to see what the fire has left them.

We, too, await word.  We are starting our field season, and it is shaping up to be an odd and possibly treacherous one.  Field work, in general, trends to the tenuous, and we have had to wait to get up to some of our sites before because of fire, but this year is beyond precedent.  We have two sites that may have burned.  We won’t know until we show up.  One is just south of the airport and one is just north of Anzac.  The MODIS satellite imagery has them both questionable. Our sites are the green dots in purple lettering.

Two of our bogs (green dots) amid a see of yellow, orange, and red dots indicating age of fire with red being most recent...  Image was taken off Google Earth May 5th.  The fire has spread into and off the borders of this image since.

This fire season is already in full swing and it is only May.  This year it officially started in March, and since then, the area has seen 30+C weather and a paucity of rain.  The fire threat is Extreme for all of our field sites currently, and the Fort McMurray fire is still burning, and, as of this morning, is just over 251,000 hectares large with several areas still out of control.  There are currently over 1,000 firefighters and firefighting personnel, 134 pieces of heavy equipment, 39 helicopters, and 11 airtankers working on this wildfire, alone.  It remains impressive and devastating and we are holding our collective breath.

All this being said, we are still looking forward to the new field season and I’m excited to get the crew together to start our work this year in the Boreal.  We return to the house where we were last year, and are lucky to do so.  Our colleagues have not been so lucky – some of whom have lost houses in Fort Mac or the ability to get up to the area to do any of their research.  At least we have several projects still in unburned areas and we can start our work.  I expect there may be some camping happening in the Fort Mac area this summer, as housing will be terribly tight.

We will be sure to keep an eye and nose to the sky and earth as we roll from site to site this summer - especially paying close attention to where we park hot trucks.  Bogs tend to hold onto fire deep into the peat, and so we will be vigilant and mindful of the potential for fires everywhere.   For now, we will do our best to keep the science moving forward.  Sites have burned in the past and sites will burn again in the future and there is always room for more questions to be answered.  So…. With that in mind: 

 Science on, crew!  

We hope to be diligent about our updates this year, so stay tuned!







Posted by Kim

Preparing for Arrival!

As I sit on my bed in my New Jersey home, procrastinating on my last bit of packing for this year's Alberta trip, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on my past Canadian summer adventures. As a recent Villanova graduate (very recent - I just graduated yesterday!), I hadn't anticipated making a return to Alberta this summer. But as luck would have it, I don't have to start my graduate program until September, and I happily took the opportunity to spend my fourth summer in the beautiful boreal zone. 

The first time I came up to Alberta, I had no idea what I was in for; I barely knew what a peatland was. My experience learning about these remarkable ecosystems, working in them, and ultimately being able to form my own scientific questions about them, has been incredibly formative. I am a lifelong outdoors enthusiast, but until my first field summer, I didn't know that I could combine my love of adventures in the wilderness with my passion for science. At the end of this summer, I will be starting a Ph.D. program in biogeochemistry at UC Davis; considering that I didn't even know what biogeochemistry was before working in our lab, you could say that these experiences have been pretty life-changing for me!

My particular research focus for the past few years has been nitrogen fixation in boreal peatlands - a pretty cool process by which microbes can turn nitrogen in the atmosphere (N2) into usable nitrogen for plants, and the main source of usable nitrogen in our peatlands. I'm interested in figuring out what controls the rates of this process in our ecosystems, and spent a lot of time this past year studying the role of molybdenum (Mo) and phosphorus (P) availability. I'm really excited to hopefully be able to keep collecting data on that project, as well as measuring rates of fixation at many other sites to determine the effects of nitrogen deposition (a major concern due to the proximity of the Athabasca Oil Sands Region) and time-since-wildfire. If last summer taught me anything, it's that science is as frustrating as often as it is fun, but I am stoked to start things up all the same.

-Katy 

Spring 2012 at Meanook: A Nice Reminder

As we prepare for the field season, everyone is losing their mind.  Seriously losing our minds.  Well, maybe not everyone, but I certainly am.  Not enough time and too much to do.  New projects are a hand-full and people are stressed.  I am stressed.  As I listen to the birds chirp outside my Phoenixville PA window this morning, I am reminded of a pugnacious ruby crowned kinglet that sang his heart out above our heads in the trees at Meanook a few years ago (wichity-witchity-witchity-WHEEEE).  I fished this post out from my personal blog and thought I would share it here.  It reminds me that with all this logistical nightmarrishness leading up to the summer projects, the fieldwork is fun.

Originally Posted May 22, 2012

In the chill of the evening, the passerines are active with the sun still several hands high.  Tennessee Warblers dressed in yellowish green have invaded en masse and flit from tree to tree.  They are mistaking windows for pass-throughs much to the dismay of everyone here at Meanook.  One such warbler, recovering on a pine branch, finally flew off, but only after Kitten made leaps for it, pulling the bough low as if he was the one hanging on for dear life.  Yay, bird!  No doubt Kitten will find a snack elsewhere this evening but the warbler flies free.  White Throated Sparrows are chatting with the Chickadees and the rowdy Ruby Crowned Kinglets, the Blue Jays yell and swoop from low branch to low branch, and the Sapsuckers play percussive wood.  It is a symphony in the bush. 

Spring is arriving here with birds and blooms.  The cherries aren’t quite flowering yet, but they are knocking on that door.  It seems spring is a little early up here as it is also on the east coast.  Last year almost to the day, it snowed 5 inches.  Two days ago I was hot and sweaty looking at a collapsing permafrost mound. 

Our research puts us in what is called the discontinuous permafrost zone.  North of us, the earth is frozen year ‘round.  South of us, the soil thaws completely every summer.  Here, there are pockets of frozen mixed in with the thawed.  This zone is shifting northward and that thaw brings changes to the landscape and changes to the ecosystems.  Fire hastens this advancement, warming the earth as it scorches it with no chance of the peat recovering the cold of the next winter.  Last year was a doozy on the fire-front, and this year, seems like we are in for another.  Right now, 23 fires burn in Alberta with 345 fires since the burning season started this spring.  We drive through smoke on the way to our sites.  That acrid burn in the nose is not unfamiliar to us and puts me on edge.

Tomorrow we head north to the Mariana Lakes region of Alberta where we will spend the day in both bog and fen and hopefully not run into any bears or fire.  The travel allows for some fast truck window viewing, and since arriving, we’ve seen much:  a Bald Eagle, an Osprey, countless waterfowl and shore birds, Sandhill Cranes, Buteos, Falcons, Shrikes, Passerines of all shapes and sizes.  Our feathered friends are here and are welcoming us to Alberta and to spring.  The morning will bring the dawn of a new day and as we walk among the mosses, the birds will sing.

Note:  The above was written 2 days ago… the total fires is now up to 390 as of 10 AM yesterday…   much potential for ignition.   We have only experienced a bit of smoke and smoldering.  So far so good.

NOTE #2....   our sites all made it untinged through the 2012 fire season.  Let's hope for the same in 2013.  We will be hard at work in Alberta in less than a month.

Welcome

Welcome to the 55th Parallel.  Our ecological research in Canada takes us above and just below the 55th parallel in Alberta, and in the summer, we utilize our 17 hours of sunlight to the fullest. In the winter, when thankfully we aren't busy up there, the sun is above the horizon for not quite 7 hours.  It is a great place to work if you can fend off the black flies and bears -- and there are plenty of both.  The wetlands in which we work are teeming with life of all kinds, and these systems are beautiful.


This blog's inspiration comes from wanting to share some of what we know and some of what we experience while doing research both here at VU and in Canada.  We are exposed to some great people, fascinating terrain, and quality research.  Throughout the next few months, in particular, as we delve into the busy summer field season, we'll share what is happening with us and our group and we welcome feedback and insights.

Our research takes us primarily to Alberta Canada where we focus on disturbances both anthropogenic and natural.  We work in peatlands, which in this part of the world, are dominated by treed bogs and both treed and open fens.  Within these wetland systems, we work to tease apart nutrient cycling under the umbrella of fire, pollution, and climate change scenarios.  We do this because peatlands store vast amounts of carbon and other nutrients, and it is this carbon that could potentially be released back into the atmosphere, given changing conditions, thus further contributing in some way to global climate change.

We hope to share with the world (and friends and family) why these systems are so incredibly important, our love for the ecosystem, and the science that drives it all.  We will have posts from graduate students, undergraduates, professors, technicians, and hopefully some interesting guest writers.

And so, welcome.