I had the amazing opportunity to conducted field work at CBAWO in June and July this summer. My main objective was to record the flowering time distribution for Arctic plant species. I plan to use these probability distributions in my models evaluating evolutionary and life history trait patterns of species’ flowering time responses to climate change. I set up transects in multiple vegetation types to record flowering times. I walked the transects ever day and counted the number of plants in flower of each species. Sometimes I had as many as 400 plants of a single species in flower along a 150m transect! My initial analysis of the field data shows that the flowering time follows a normal distribution with peak flowering skewed a little towards the start of flowering.
In addition, a subsidiary objective was to collect herbarium specimens of each vascular plant species growing at Cape Bounty. I collected 80 specimens for the Canadian Museum of Nature’s National Herbarium of Canada including 53 different plant species.
Finally, I collaborated with Neal Scott to record plant species abundance in the Cape Bounty International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) plots. These plots are undergoing snow and/or warming treatments to simulate climate change scenarios. The whole team at Cape Bounty in July helped out with the data gathering. We recorded all the plant species at 100 sampling points in each of the 40 plots. My initial analysis suggests that willows are more dominant in warmed plots and there is a lot of moss in all the plots!
It was an awesome experience working with the students and faculty from Queens and learning about Arctic hydrology and soil science while at CBAWO. Thanks to the Queens team for giving me the opportunity to do field work at CBAWO!