Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, North & West Alaska CESU

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The USGS Alaska Science Center is offering a funding opportunity for research to evaluate the potential climate-driven effects of phenological shifts on the availability and abundance of nutrients in the primary summer forages of arctic ungulates. For caribou and muskoxen, the high seasonal variation in plant abundance and quality accentuates the need to replenish body stores during a short growing season that is critical for reproduction and winter survival. Consequently, the predominant effects of climate changes to populations of northern herbivores are likely to be nutritionally mediated through changes in vegetative phenology and nutrient content during the summer. Thus, assessing long-term changes in temperature and vegetative phenology and the spatio-temporal dynamics of nutrients will elucidate the potential bottom-up effects of climate changes to populations of northern ungulates. This research will assess the nutrient concentration of common caribou and muskoxen forages collected every 2 weeks from May to September, 2011-13. The study area comprises the elevation gradient along the Haul Road from Toolik Lake to Prudhoe Bay, AK. Nutrient analyses of forages (n = 405 in 2011; Eriophorum vaginatum, Carex aquatilis, Pedicularis langsdorfii, Salix pulchra, and Salix alaxensis) includes the following: 1) Proximate analysis: analytical dry matter, ash, neutral and acid detergent fiber, and acid lignin; and 2) Nutrient concentrations: gross energy, nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium, copper, and zinc.

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