How are high-arctic plants affected by winter basal-ice encasement? Are they trade-offs in plant fitness traits and above-ground biomass production?
Project description:
Winter rain-on-snow events are increasing frequency, locking the tundra in a thick ice layer. A first experiment, located in Adventdalen, test for effects of warmer winters and summers in a fully factorial study design with four treatment combinations: winter icing; summer warming (using Open Top Chambers); winter icing x summer warming and controls. In a second experiment, located at the Gamle nordlysstation, we transplanted vegetation into a ‘common garden’ for reducing spatial heterogeneity in the environment, having a better control of the winter icing treatment and adding a winter thaw-freeze treatment. Over the summer period, we follow the developmental stages and primary production of plants from both experiments. We are a great team of 4 field-assistants, join the group for some days!
Tasks:
Field work:
– Assessment of phenological stages
– Primary production index measurements (NDVI)
– Leaves and flower traits measurements
– Biomass measurements by point intercept methods
Lab work:
– Sorting, drying and weighing plant material
Prerequesites:
You are curious to learn about arctic plants and good at observing small details! You need to be able to stay long days in the field without freezing.
You will always work in pairs with one of our field-assistant experts, so you don’t need to know much about plants, you will learn!
The project involves:
Fieldwork but also some labwork
Starting date/period:
22. July – 20. August 2019
Experience/skills to be acquired:
- Classifying plant developmental stages
- Experimental study design
- Methods in measuring primary production
- Understanding of tundra ecosystem functioning
Involvement:
Flexible. All different types of measurements will happen between the 22nd of July and 20nd of August.
Interested by this project? Need more info? Contact
Mathilde Le Moullec
mathilde.lemoullec@ntnu.no
Project number: 5