Talk on 12/11/14
Agata Buchwal, a
Fulbright Fellow from the University of Alaska in Anchorage wanted to know what
can we learn from tree rings in Artic shrubs’ annual growth? She realized that
the Artic is like a desert in that it has very little life and knowing what
goes on there is crucial especially because the Artic has a great deal of
control over the temperature due to it being one of the greatest sources of
cold climate. The Artic is also a hotspot for global change and has evidence of
site and species specific response to change. Both of these important
phenomenon led her into researching her topic on annual growth patterns in
Artic shrubs.
The Artic has “high
resolution data and might be a proxy for validation and reconstruction on
records”. She noticed that from global
warming, there has been an overall greening and warming effect which is
affecting the flora, but how? In most cases, plants are active in growth only
during the summer months due to more sunlight (for photosynthesis) and warmer
temperature. She found that these dwarf shrubs are actually becoming more
active in summer and winter months. She saw evidence of this in patterns in
tree ring growth. Buchwal analyzed the tree rings of 10 shrubs, but noticed
that she was getting little records from the rings and in fact, there were huge
gaps in years with no growth. She decided to take a different approach to
analyzing tree rings and instead dug deeper into the ground to analyze the rings
under the surface, which is not standard procedure. When she analyzed those
below surface rings, she found a more concrete story leading her to believe
that dendrochronologist may be missing out on key information by not measuring
and comparing above and below surface rings. Another main point she stressed in
the talk was that the Artic needs to be explored further to get a better
indication of climate change and how species and sites can adapt to change.
Agata still has
many unanswered questions brought up while analyzing her results. How many
observed shrubs actually have missing rings and how many are actually wedging
rings? Due to current measurement methods, some rings may be misanalysed and
counted as missing when they are really a wedge ring (partially missing ring).
Are we measuring tree rings wrong and leaving out key data by not measuring
rings from below the surface (roots)?
Up next on Agata’s
academic journey is to look at our local Tundra in Alaska to see if there are
similar tree rings results as found in Tundra of the Artic. She also wants to
run experiments to see how plants will deal with a 2 degree Celsius increase in
temperature (result of Global Warming). She suggests bringing many different
diverse experts to help bring in different ideas to piece the story together.
Buchwal also wants to know (in future research) how water is being dealt with
based on the evidence from the tree rings, for example, can we see if the
plants are using precipitation or melting permafrost more efficiently based on
the ring evidence.
