Project will help train the next generation of Arctic scientists in wildlife ecology, environmental informatics, natural resource management and social science
Wild caribou are the single most important land-based species for both human communities and ecosystems in the Arctic. Abundant across the polar region, these animals play an essential role both as herbivores that impact tundra vegetation and as an important source of food to… Read more
Team of NAU paleoclimatologists contribute to major report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, forming scientific underpinnings for negotiations to limit carbon emissions worldwide
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) has just released its latest major assessment report on global climate change, approved by the world’s… Read more
Scientists at Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University, the Arizona Geological Survey at the University of Arizona and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder have been awarded almost $2 million from the National Science Foundation to develop a virtual reality teaching tool called Polar Explorer. In this… Read more
Drought—even in a single year—can leave aspen more vulnerable to insect infestation and other stressors decades later, a new study by NAU researchers found. Aspen trees that were not resilient to drought stayed smaller than others, growing more slowly and succumbing to an outbreak of insects known as aspen leaf miners that have plagued interior Alaska for more than two decades.
The findings, led by research specialist Melissa Boyd and Regents’ professor Michelle Mack of the Center for Ecosystem Science… Read more
Just a few bacterial taxa found in ecosystems across the planet are responsible for more than half of carbon cycling in soils. These new findings, made by researchers at Northern Arizona University and published in Nature Communications this week, suggest that despite the diversity of microbial taxa found in wild soils… Read more
New long-term data from a permafrost monitoring site in Healy, Alaska, suggest it was a net carbon source to the atmosphere at least since 2004 and, under current climate conditions as the region grows warmer, will continue to be one, potentially losing up to a fifth of all carbon stored… Read more