Publications

Sep, 2026

Journal

Rhizosphere dynamics shape soil biogeochemistry: insights into thawing permafrost landscapes

Arctic permafrost regions contain the largest terrestrial carbon stocks on the globe. Thermokarst wetlands are increasingly forming in these Arctic systems due to ground subsidence caused by permafrost thaw, necessitating understanding of how these changing landscapes function and their feedback with global change and carbon cycling. We evaluated how the above- and belowgr…

Sep, 2026

Journal

Ecological Insights from Transferable Plant Biomass Mapping across the Arctic using High-resolution Structure-from-Motion and LiDAR Data

Warmer temperatures, permafrost thaw, and increased wildfire activity are driving rapid ecological change across the Arctic, significantly altering plant productivity and aboveground biomass (AGB). These rapid changes highlight the urgent need to improve monitoring of vegetation dynamics in the Earth’s northern ecosystems, where high spatiotemporal heterogeneity occurs at…

Jul, 2026

Journal

Acquisitive root exploration strategies help maintain higher peak sap flux rates during summer drought, but more root biomass does not

● Roots are responsible for soil water uptake, yet little is known about how variation in fine-root traits relates to whole-tree water movement, particularly during periods of drought. ● By combining a three-year dataset monitoring sap flow rates with measures of fine-root biomass, length, and morphology across 10 tree species, we addressed hypotheses concerning the role o…

May, 2026

Journal

Vegetation heterogeneity reflects soil thermal state and surface soil displacement in a thawing permafrost landscape

Thawing permafrost has the potential to dramatically alter the physical and ecological structure of northern landscapes. Warming of the Arctic and subsequent degradation of permafrost have created a need to assess the stability and movement of soils on hillslopes and the potential impacts on ecosystem structure. In this work, we explore the relationships among vegetation h…

Apr, 2026

Journal

Rooting for function: community-level fine-root traits relate to many ecosystem functions

Humans are driving biodiversity change, which also alters community functional traits. However, how changes in the functional traits of the community alter ecosystem functions—especially belowground—remains an important gap in our understanding of the consequences of biodiversity change. We test hypotheses for how the root traits of the root economics space (composed of th…

Apr, 2026

Journal

Abrupt thaw alters phosphorus cycling in alpine tundra

The impacts of permafrost thaw are widespread across tundra landscapes. Now, research across a series of thermokarst landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau shows that abrupt permafrost thaw increases plant-available phosphorus, alters the vegetation community and tips the balance of belowground nutrient competition.

Mar, 2026

Journal

Agile Allocation in the Tundra: A Single Growing Season of Warming Increases Nutrient Availability While Decreasing Fine-Root Length

The majority of plant biomass is located belowground in Arctic ecosystems and plant roots are responsible for the uptake of the nutrients that constrain plant growth in these infertile ecosystems. Despite performing a crucial role connecting primary producers to the soil, roots are relatively understudied in the Arctic and their functional response to a rapidly warming and…

Feb, 2026

Journal

Changing Interactions Between Trace Gas Fluxes, Belowground Chemistry, and Plant Traits Across an Arctic Thermokarst Landscape

Arctic permafrost soils are increasingly subject to thermokarst that is, abrupt ground subsidence caused by thaw. Wetlands can form within these depressions, leading to changes in organic matter decomposition and gas fluxes (CO2, CH4, N2O, NH3). Thermokarst wetlands tend to be dominated by graminoids, while surrounding upland tussock tundra tends to be dominated by mixed c…

Dec, 2025

Journal

Integrating Characteristic Arctic Vegetation in a Land Surface Model Improves Representation of Carbon Dynamics Across a Tundra Landscape

Arctic warming is altering vegetation and carbon dynamics with global implications, yet Earth System Model (ESM) predictions in the Arctic remain highly uncertain, in part due to historically limited data for model parameterization and validation. As such, ESMs typically represent Arctic ecosystems in an oversimplified manner. Recently, nine plant functional types (PFTs) d…

Dec, 2025

Journal

Mapping wall-to-wall fractional cover of Arctic tundra plant functional types in Alaska using 20-m spatial resolution satellite imagery and harmonized plot observations

Estimates of fractional cover (fCover) across given land surfaces are used to assess, and often model, vegetation composition and diversity, which are crucial for understanding the health and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Remote sensing provides a useful means for scaling local, plot-measured fCover estimates to regional scales. Leveraging a recently synthesized a…

Jul, 2025

Journal

PAVC: The foundation for a Pan-Arctic Vegetation Cover database

Field-measured Arctic vegetation cover data is essential for creating accurate, high-quality vegetation structure and composition maps. Extrapolating field data into high-resolution cover maps provides detailed, function-specific information for use in Earth System Models, vegetation classifications, and monitoring vegetation change over time and space. However, field camp…

Jun, 2025

Journal

Tree root nutrient uptake kinetics vary with nutrient availability, environmental conditions, and root traits: A global analysis