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Early morning at the Tutakoke River field camp in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Researchers are studying how the phenology of sub-Arctic tundra plants and the seasonal arrival of migratory Pacific black brants, a species of wild geese, affects ecosystem functioning at the field site.
A team of scientists is conducting a highly manipulative experiment in which they are altering the timing of goose arrival (foraging) and the start of the growing season to investigate how these factors influence carbon and nitrogen cycling, the quality of forage and whether geese mediate the effects of climate change by altering soil and plant nutrition, vegetation canopy traits and plant demography.Image credit: Ryan Choi, Utah State University
