Project Funding: 2015 - 2021

NRA: 2014 NASA: Terrestrial Ecology   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
We will investigate the role of vegetation dynamics across the ABoVE study domain, building upon our extensive prior work documenting changes in arctic and boreal vegetation productivity over the past three decades using moderate and coarse resolution satellite data and related field measurements. We will expand past activities with the most recent satellite data sets as well as newer, higher resolution satellite data products and existing aircraft lidar and hyperspectral data (in anticipation of future aircraft campaigns for ABoVE). These analyses will be coupled with extensive field measurements and species-specific modeling to capture areas of documented boreal biome tree mortality and tundra vegetation changes across regional climate and environmental gradients. Our investigations will be in the context of exploring multiple lines of evidence for the progression of an arctic - boreal biome shift, where tree productivity decreases and mortality increases in the southern boreal while suitability for range expansion and densification of woody vegetation (e.g. shrubs) increases in the northern boreal and arctic tundra. The investigative team has worked extensively on these topics and can leverage existing resources, focusing on aspects of boreal forest dynamics that make them particularly vulnerable to productivity declines and tree mortality, mapping those with multi-scale satellite imagery and modeling these processes using gap and forest demography models with a long history of well developed capabilities. We will also conduct more detailed regional analyses focused on faunal habitat changes associated with vegetation composition and structure changes in both biomes, with a focus on areas of interior Alaska and western Canada (boreal biome), and the Seward Peninsula and North Slope of Alaska and northwestern Canada (tundra biome). These regions include the winter range of the declining western arctic caribou herd as well as the Fortymile caribou herd historical range extending from the Yukon river north of Fairbanks to near Whitehorse. Thus the proposed activity focuses on some of the largest issues of concern to management agencies in the region. A substantial contingent of the team has unique insights into these land and wildlife management issues, as well as the fine scale heterogeneity of vegetation pattern and process that provides a solid basis for calibration and validation of maps derived from satellite imagery, and thus the means to scale from field site to landscapes. Other members of our interdisciplinary team have considerable complementary expertise in remote sensing and in situ vegetation mensuration for mapping and monitoring vegetation dynamics, forest demography process modeling, and other relevant experience in arctic and boreal landscapes. As part of this project, PI Goetz applied to be overall ABoVE Science Team Lead, and was selected for that role.

Publications:

Andreu-Hayles, L., Gaglioti, B. V., Berner, L. T., Levesque, M., Anchukaitis, K. J., Goetz, S. J., D'Arrigo, R. 2020. A narrow window of summer temperatures associated with shrub growth in Arctic Alaska. Environmental Research Letters. 15(10), 105012. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab897f

Berner, L. T., Jantz, P., Tape, K. D., Goetz, S. J. 2018. Tundra plant above-ground biomass and shrub dominance mapped across the North Slope of Alaska. Environmental Research Letters. 13(3), 035002. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aaaa9a

Berner, L. T., Massey, R., Jantz, P., Forbes, B. C., Macias-Fauria, M., Myers-Smith, I., Kumpula, T., Gauthier, G., Andreu-Hayles, L., Gaglioti, B. V., Burns, P., Zetterberg, P., D'Arrigo, R., Goetz, S. J. 2020. Summer warming explains widespread but not uniform greening in the Arctic tundra biome. Nature Communications. 11(1). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18479-5

Bjorkman, A. D., Myers-Smith, I. H., Elmendorf, S. C., Normand, S., Ruger, N., Beck, P. S. A., Blach-Overgaard, A., Blok, D., Cornelissen, J. H. C., Forbes, B. C., Georges, D., Goetz, S. J., Guay, K. C., Henry, G. H. R., HilleRisLambers, J., Hollister, R. D., Karger, D. N., Kattge, J., Manning, P., Prevey, J. S., Rixen, C., Schaepman-Strub, G., Thomas, H. J. D., Vellend, M., Wilmking, M., Wipf, S., Carbognani, M., Hermanutz, L., Levesque, E., Molau, U., Petraglia, A., Soudzilovskaia, N. A., Spasojevic, M. J., Tomaselli, M., Vowles, T., Alatalo, J. M., Alexander, H. D., Anadon-Rosell, A., Angers-Blondin, S., Beest, M. T., Berner, L., Bjork, R. G., Buchwal, A., Buras, A., Christie, K., Cooper, E. J., Dullinger, S., Elberling, B., Eskelinen, A., Frei, E. R., Grau, O., Grogan, P., Hallinger, M., Harper, K. A., Heijmans, M. M. P. D., Hudson, J., Hulber, K., Iturrate-Garcia, M., Iversen, C. M., Jaroszynska, F., Johnstone, J. F., Jorgensen, R. H., Kaarlejarvi, E., Klady, R., Kuleza, S., Kulonen, A., Lamarque, L. J., Lantz, T., Little, C. J., Speed, J. D. M., Michelsen, A., Milbau, A., Nabe-Nielsen, J., Nielsen, S. S., Ninot, J. M., Oberbauer, S. F., Olofsson, J., Onipchenko, V. G., Rumpf, S. B., Semenchuk, P., Shetti, R., Collier, L. S., Street, L. E., Suding, K. N., Tape, K. D., Trant, A., Treier, U. A., Tremblay, J., Tremblay, M., Venn, S., Weijers, S., Zamin, T., Boulanger-Lapointe, N., Gould, W. A., Hik, D. S., Hofgaard, A., Jonsdottir, I. S., Jorgenson, J., Klein, J., Magnusson, B., Tweedie, C., Wookey, P. A., Bahn, M., Blonder, B., van Bodegom, P. M., Bond-Lamberty, B., Campetella, G., Cerabolini, B. E. L., Chapin, F. S., Cornwell, W. K., Craine, J., Dainese, M., de Vries, F. T., Diaz, S., Enquist, B. J., Green, W., Milla, R., Niinemets, U., Onoda, Y., Ordonez, J. C., Ozinga, W. A., Penuelas, J., Poorter, H., Poschlod, P., Reich, P. B., Sandel, B., Schamp, B., Sheremetev, S., Weiher, E. 2018. Plant functional trait change across a warming tundra biome. Nature. 562(7725), 57-62. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0563-7

Boyd, M. A., Berner, L. T., Doak, P., Goetz, S. J., Rogers, B. M., Wagner, D., Walker, X. J., Mack, M. C. 2019. Impacts of climate and insect herbivory on productivity and physiology of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) in Alaskan boreal forests. Environmental Research Letters. 14(8), 085010. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab215f

Fisher, J. B., Hayes, D. J., Schwalm, C. R., Huntzinger, D. N., Stofferahn, E., Schaefer, K., Luo, Y., Wullschleger, S. D., Goetz, S., Miller, C. E., Griffith, P., Chadburn, S., Chatterjee, A., Ciais, P., Douglas, T. A., Genet, H., Ito, A., Neigh, C. S. R., Poulter, B., Rogers, B. M., Sonnentag, O., Tian, H., Wang, W., Xue, Y., Yang, Z., Zeng, N., Zhang, Z. 2018. Missing pieces to modeling the Arctic-Boreal puzzle. Environmental Research Letters. 13(2), 020202. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aa9d9a

Foster, A. C., Armstrong, A. H., Shuman, J. K., Shugart, H. H., Rogers, B. M., Mack, M. C., Goetz, S. J., Ranson, K. J. 2019. Importance of tree- and species-level interactions with wildfire, climate, and soils in interior Alaska: Implications for forest change under a warming climate. Ecological Modelling. 409, 108765. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.108765

Grosse, G., Goetz, S., McGuire, A. D., Romanovsky, V. E., Schuur, E. A. G. 2016. Changing permafrost in a warming world and feedbacks to the Earth system. Environmental Research Letters. 11(4), 040201. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/040201

Hobbie, J. E., Shaver, G. R., Rastetter, E. B., Cherry, J. E., Goetz, S. J., Guay, K. C., Gould, W. A., Kling, G. W. 2017. Ecosystem responses to climate change at a Low Arctic and a High Arctic long-term research site. Ambio. 46(S1), 160-173. DOI: 10.1007/s13280-016-0870-x

Loranty, M. M., Lieberman-Cribbin, W., Berner, L. T., Natali, S. M., Goetz, S. J., Alexander, H. D., Kholodov, A. L. 2016. Spatial variation in vegetation productivity trends, fire disturbance, and soil carbon across arctic-boreal permafrost ecosystems. Environmental Research Letters. 11(9), 095008. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/095008

Macander, M., Frost, G., Nelson, P., Swingley, C. 2017. Regional Quantitative Cover Mapping of Tundra Plant Functional Types in Arctic Alaska. Remote Sensing. 9(10), 1024. DOI: 10.3390/rs9101024

Miller C E, Griffith P C, Goetz S J, Hoy E E, Pinto N, McCubbin I B, Thorpe A K, Hofton M, Hodkinson D, Hansen C, Woods J, Larson E, Kasischke E S, Margolis H A. 2019 An overview of ABoVE airborne campaign data acquisitions and science opportunities. Environmental Research Letters. 14(8), 080201. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab0d44

Pastick, N. J., Jorgenson, M. T., Goetz, S. J., Jones, B. M., Wylie, B. K., Minsley, B. J., Genet, H., Knight, J. F., Swanson, D. K., Jorgenson, J. C. 2018. Spatiotemporal remote sensing of ecosystem change and causation across Alaska. Global Change Biology. 25(3), 1171-1189. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14279

Rogers, B. M., Solvik, K., Hogg, E. H., Ju, J., Masek, J. G., Michaelian, M., Berner, L. T., Goetz, S. J. 2018. Detecting early warning signals of tree mortality in boreal North America using multiscale satellite data. Global Change Biology. 24(6), 2284-2304. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14107

Smith, A. M., Kolden, C. A., Paveglio, T. B., Cochrane, M. A., Bowman, D. M., Moritz, M. A., Kliskey, A. D., Alessa, L., Hudak, A. T., Hoffman, C. M., Lutz, J. A., Queen, L. P., Goetz, S. J., Higuera, P. E., Boschetti, L., Flannigan, M., Yedinak, K. M., Watts, A. C., Strand, E. K., van Wagtendonk, J. W., Anderson, J. W., Stocks, B. J., Abatzoglou, J. T. 2016. The Science of Firescapes: Achieving Fire-Resilient Communities. BioScience. 66(2), 130-146. DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biv182

Thomas, H. J. D., Myers-Smith, I. H., Bjorkman, A. D., Elmendorf, S. C., Blok, D., Cornelissen, J. H. C., Forbes, B. C., Hollister, R. D., Normand, S., Prevey, J. S., Rixen, C., Schaepman-Strub, G., Wilmking, M., Wipf, S., Cornwell, W. K., Kattge, J., Goetz, S. J., Guay, K. C., Alatalo, J. M., Anadon-Rosell, A., Angers-Blondin, S., Berner, L. T., Bjork, R. G., Buchwal, A., Buras, A., Carbognani, M., Christie, K., Siegwart Collier, L., Cooper, E. J., Eskelinen, A., Frei, E. R., Grau, O., Grogan, P., Hallinger, M., Heijmans, M. M. P. D., Hermanutz, L., Hudson, J. M. G., Hulber, K., Iturrate-Garcia, M., Iversen, C. M., Jaroszynska, F., Johnstone, J. F., Kaarlejarvi, E., Kulonen, A., Lamarque, L. J., Levesque, E., Little, C. J., Michelsen, A., Milbau, A., Nabe-Nielsen, J., Nielsen, S. S., Ninot, J. M., Oberbauer, S. F., Olofsson, J., Onipchenko, V. G., Petraglia, A., Rumpf, S. B., Semenchuk, P. R., Soudzilovskaia, N. A., Spasojevic, M. J., Speed, J. D. M., Tape, K. D., te Beest, M., Tomaselli, M., Trant, A., Treier, U. A., Venn, S., Vowles, T., Weijers, S., Zamin, T., Atkin, O. K., Bahn, M., Blonder, B., Campetella, G., Cerabolini, B. E. L., Chapin III, F. S., Dainese, M., de Vries, F. T., Diaz, S., Green, W., Jackson, R. B., Manning, P., Niinemets, U., Ozinga, W. A., Penuelas, J., Reich, P. B., Schamp, B., Sheremetev, S., van Bodegom, P. M. 2018. Traditional plant functional groups explain variation in economic but not size-related traits across the tundra biome. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 28(2), 78-95. DOI: 10.1111/geb.12783

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• NASA Terrestrial Ecology (TE) Project Profile
• North American Carbon Program (NACP) Project Profile
• NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) Project Profile