Science about Science

Since movement is the norm for caribou, it is noticeable when an animal changes its movement pattern—especially when it slows down or stops. By using GPS collar data, biologists have been able to detect when female caribou slow down long enough to give birth to a calf. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

There are many tools available to study the movements of birds and the technology is evolving rapidly. Explore how satellite telemetry, global system for mobile communications telemetry, archival light-level loggers, and GPS data loggers are used in migratory bird research and what we are learning as a result. Alaska Park Science (20)1, 2021

Parks in Alaska pose special challenges to researchers: they are large, remote, and less is known about them. This makes it all the more important that tools and techniques we use here are practical, effective, and impactful. While researchers often focus on sharing the findings from their work, here we shine a light on the devices and approaches used by researchers with attention to the innovation needed to work in Alaska. Alaska Park Science 20 (1), 2021

Lake sediments accumulate for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, serving as a geological record or environmental archive of long-term climate change and ecological variability. Paleoclimatologists and paleoecologists are examining lake sediment cores to deduce environmental changes of the past. This understanding will allow us to make more informed predictions about future change. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

Repeat photography is an effective method to qualitatively and quantitatively assess landscape change over time. From shrinking glaciers to changing vegetation to changes in the built environment, comparing historical and contemporary photos can help us identify specific features or processes that may require more intensive monitoring and research and can serve as a valuable tool for education, outreach, and resource management. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

Parks in Alaska pose special challenges to researchers: they are large, remote, and less is known about them. This makes it all the more important that tools and techniques we use here are practical, effective, and impactful. While researchers often focus on sharing the findings from their work, here we shine a light on the devices and approaches used by researchers with attention to the innovation needed to work in Alaska. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

Animals are continuously immersed in acoustic signals. Acoustic recording devices allow us to extend our sense of hearing to remote places, times, and even frequencies we normally cannot access. By studying the sounds animals make, and the sounds in their environment, we can better understand their conservation needs. Presented here are examples from bats, birds, frogs, and whales. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

Aquatic insects are good indicators of stream ecosystem health because they are common, reasonably well understood, easy to collect and analyze, and sensitive to the environment in which they live. We can determine the relative health of a stream by comparing what insects we find to what we would expect to find in a similar healthy stream. This straightforward approach can be used in all kinds of settings and compared across a region. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

High-definition laser scanning is a recently adopted technology to collect highly accurate and detailed spatial data that can be processed into a three-dimensional digital model. It is a powerful tool to quickly and accurately document historical buildings and sites, which can facilitate conservation and restoration of these cultural resources. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

Moraines are the footprint of past glacier positions and, if the age of the moraine is known, they can record the timing and rate of glacier change. Carefully reconstructed glacier histories are used as archives of past climate change. Cosmogenic isotope exposure dating is a new technique being used in the Revelation Mountains that could tell us about glacier and climate history of the Alaska Range. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

Read the summary and get the link to an article that describes a new approach to model lake ice phenology: Kirchner, P. B. and M. P. Hannam. 2024. Volume-mediated lake-ice phenology in Southwest Alaska revealed through remote sensing and survival analysis. Water 16(16): 2309.

Read the abstract and get the link to a published article on detecting icing events in: Bartsch, A., H. Bergstedt, G. Pointner, X. Muri, K. Rautiainen, L. Leppänen, K. Joly, A. Sokolov, P. Orekhov, D. Ehrich, and E. M. Soininen. 2023. Towards long-term records of rain-on-snow events across the Arctic from satellite data. The Cryosphere 17(2): 889-915.

Read a summary and get the link to a paper discussing the effectiveness of non-invasive monitoring techniques: Schmidt, J. H., W. W. Deacy, L. J. Hughes, and D. T. Schertz. 2023. Non-invasive mark-resight surveys for brown bears: Incorporating spatial information to improve landscape-scale monitoring of density and distribution. Ecological Solutions and Evidence 4(4): e12288.

Read a summary and link to the full published article on noise in: Ferguson, L. A., P. Newman, M. F. McKenna, D. H. Betchkal, Z. D. Miller, R. Keller, K. M. Fristrup, and B. D. Taff. 2023. How much noise is too much? Methods for identifying thresholds for soundscape quality and ecosystem services. Applied Acoustics 209: 109388.

Read the abstract and get the link to a peer-reviewed article on the use of climate models in ecological modeling: Sardoti, G., S. A. McAfee, E. F. Nicklen, P. J. Sousanes, and C. A. Roland. 2020. Evaluating multiple historical climate products in ecological models under current and projected temperatures. Ecological Applications 0(0): e2240.

Read the abstract and get the link to a paper published in the Wildlife Bulletin about representativeness among collared animals in a population: Prichard, A. K., K. Joly, L. S. Parrett, M. D. Cameron, D. A. Hansen, and B. T. Person. 2022. Achieving a representative sample of marked animals: A spatial approach to evaluating post-capture randomization. Wildlife Society Bulletin e1398.

Read the abstract and get the link for an article on caribou migration patterns published in Movement Ecology: Baltensperger, A. P., and K. Joly. 2019. Using seasonal landscape models to predict space use and migratory patterns of an arctic ungulate. Movement Ecology 7 (18). DOI: 10.1186/s40462-019-0162-8.

Since movement is the norm for caribou, it is noticeable when an animal changes its movement pattern—especially when it slows down or stops. By using GPS collar data, biologists have been able to detect when female caribou slow down long enough to give birth to a calf. Alaska Park Science 20(1), 2021

Read the abstract and link to the full article in the Journal of Applied Ecology: Mizel, J. D., J. H. Schmidt, and M. S. Lindberg. 2018. Accommodating temporary emigration in spatial distance sampling models. Journal of Applied Ecology 55:1456-1464.

Read the abstract and find the link to the article published in Ecohealth: Bowen, L., A. K. Miles, S. Waters, D. Gustine, K. Joly, and G. Hilderbrand. 2017. Using gene transcription to assess ecological and anthropological stressors in brown bears. EcoHealth 11 pp.