Overview:
My research interests focus on two general themes: 1) carbon and nitrogen cycling in streams, rivers and soils (especially in the context of land-water interactions), and 2) watershed-scale carbon cycling and climate change. I am interested in carbon and nitrogen cycling at a range of scales ranging from the molecular composition and microbial use of dissolved organic molecules, to the biogeochemical cycling in streams and soil, to larger scale fluxes from watersheds and trace gas emissions to the atmosphere. A central theme of my research is the role of hydrology, both surface and ground water, in linking ecosystems and governing biogeochemical transformations. A second theme involves the role of permafrost and permafrost thaw in controlling ecosystem structure in boreal forest and arctic ecosystems.
Watershed Hydrobiogeochemistry:
We are investigating how streams are linked to their catchments, and focuses on how permafrost influences groundwater inputs of nutrients and organic matter to streams. The boreal forest in interior Alaska is underlain with discontinuous permafrost, which has a major affect on watershed hydrology. Where permafrost is present, groundwater flowpaths through catchments are largely restricted to soils, whereas in the absence of permafrost water can infiltrate into deeper bedrock regions of watersheds. In addition to affecting hydrology, permafrost stores a lot of soil organic matter that will potentially be released to streams and the atmosphere with climatic warming and permafrost thaw. This work is funded through the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Program (http://www.lter.uaf.edu/) and is being conducted in the Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watersheds (CPCRW; located near Fairbanks). For more information see http://users.iab.uaf.edu/~jay_jones/ResearchCPCRW.html.
Thermokarsts in Arctic Ecosystems:
We have been studying the impacts of thermokarsts on Arctic and boreal forest ecosystems. A thermokarst is a feature of landscapes with permafrost. As permafrost thaws, the underlying soil can collapse generating mass wasting of the ground surface. Depending on where these features form, thermokarsts can result in rather dramatic scares on the landscape, mobilize a lot of sediment, and rapidly release a large amount of old soil organic matter (organic matter that was previously stored in permafrost). We are interested in the age and nature/quality of carbon released from soil following thermokarst formation, trace gas emissions, and role thermokarsts play on watershed nutrient cycling. Our work on thermokarsts is being conducted near the Toolik Lake field station in northern Alaska (http://www.uaf.edu/toolik/) and in the Noatak National Preserve (http://www.nps.gov/noat/) in north-western Alaska. The project website at Pennsylvania State University can be found at http://thermokarst.psu.edu/
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