UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

The University of Alaska Anchorage has been awarded a grant to purchase two stable isotope mass spectrometers plus a tunable diode laser system to quantify the processes of change in high latitudes. The instruments will be used to measure the natural abundance of isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen (C-13, N-15, H-2 (deuterium), O-18), in studies involving plants, soils, water and animals. The instruments are also capable of measuring samples that have been enriched with these isotopes, in labeling experiments designed to study plant water sources and field metabolic rates of small mammals. The intellectual merit and the scientific motivation for acquiring this instrumentation package derives from the fact that the Arctic is changing rapidly, and there is a great need for using tools that are integrative in time and space, and tools that can unravel the complexity of linkages between the biosphere-atmosphere and aquatic systems and the intricate nature of food webs. The instruments will facilitate quantification of the consequences of vegetation change, of shifting patterns in the field metabolic rates of small mammals, of the water sources of vegetation as permafrost melts, quantification of precipitation geochemistry at local to regional scales, and food web ecology of marine mammals. In addition to the impact on the research productivity of numerous scientists in Alaska, the new instruments will support the emerging needs of NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network) in Alaska, the International Polar Year, and citizen science with Anchorage Waterways Council. This award will also allow the enhanced educational preparation of students in state-of-the-art instrumentation, including the training of undergraduates, graduate students, and Alaska Native students in the Alaska Natives Science and Engineering Program.

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