Climate change in northern environments
Arctic and subarctic communities are subjected to some of the fastest rates of climate change on the planet. To what extent are impacts on plant communities driven by direct effects (e.g., changes in temperature and precipitation) and to what extent are they driven by changes in interactions with other organisms, such as herbivores or pollinators? How important are changes in winter vs. summer conditions? Does the rapidly changing climate provide new opportunities for non-native plants? Several projects fall under this theme:
CURRENT PROJECTS
1. Plant phenology in Interior Alaska under climate change (more information coming soon!)
2. Berries in winter (more information coming soon!)
3. LESphen: Plant phenology, climate change, and geese in a subarctic saltmarsh. This is a collaboration with R.F. Rockwell (American Museum of Natural History), and Dave Iles (Utah State University).
We are evaluating how different aspects of climate change affect plant phenology, whether we can predict how different plant species will respond, and how shifts in plant phenology will affect snow goose populations.We are using a combination of data collected by the late Dr. Robert Jefferies since the 1970's, modern data, and data obtained from herbarium records going back to the 1920's; together this has allowed us to build a dataset for approx. 40 species that spans approx. 90 years. See Mulder et al. 2016 for the first publication from this project (link at the bottom of the page)
Go to the IAB Life Sciences Seminar Series from March 2014 and listen to the talk while watching a slide show (click on the Play Video button on the upper right).
See Hudson Bay Project for more information
on this habitat and other phenological shifts altering trophic interactions.
Other publications on this theme include Wipf et al. 2006 and Rixen and Mulder 2009.
(MOSTLY) COMPLETED PROJECTS
1. Cold Sick Plant Project: This was a collaboration between my lab and that of Bitty Roy (U. of Oregon). We investigated changes in attack rates by plant herbivores and pathogens on understory species in boreal forest to answer the question: does environmental variation affect herbivores and pathogens primarily directly, primarily through changes in plant qualities, or primarily through larger changes in community structure? See Mulder et al. 2008 and Roy et al. 2014 in my publications list.
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Working in the rain; pathogen damage on cranberry leaves; a leaf roller on alder.
2. Pathogens on alders: Jenny Rohrs-Richey (Ph.D. 2011) evaluated the role of drought stress in affecting the susceptibility of alder (Alnus fruticosa) to a canker (Valsa melanodiscus). For more, see Rohrs-Richey et al. 2011.
Christa at a site destroyed by a forest fire; Jenny downloading dataloggers.
