The Alaska EPSCoR research infrastructure improvement project focuses on the study of coupled natural and human systems in the context of resource management, sustainability, and resiliency. Through strategic investments that build on existing strengths, Alaska EPSCoR creates a research program that integrates physical, biological, and social sciences to address social-ecological sustainability in Alaska within the context of climate change. The research addresses topics critical to understanding change in the North: (1) permafrost variability, warming and degradation; (2) changing biodiversity and ecosystem vulnerability; and (3) resilience and well-being of rural communities in conditions of rapid change. A set of cross-cutting activities, the Integration Core, enables synergy and synthesis of science components. The research uses complexity theory methodology because of its focus on dynamics in response to perturbations; existing and new data sets; as well as bioinformatics and innovative cyberinfrastructure tools (e.g., agent-based modeling, scenario development) to explore hypotheses about the interaction of physical, biological, and social systems under conditions of rapid change.
The permafrost research uses a new paradigm to test the hypothesis that climate not only directly affects permafrost in the continuous permafrost zone, but also indirectly affects it through interactions with vegetation and fire disturbance in discontinuous zones. The biological research attempts to document, for the first time, broad patterns of past, present, and potential future bio-geographic shifts in plants and animals across Alaska, with an emphasis on subsistence species. This research addresses both gradual and abrupt changes mediated by plant-microbial interactions. The social science component integrates research on food systems, institutions, and social networks to describe how rural indigenous communities respond to climatic and social change. Since resources sustaining indigenous people are affected by climate change, the research examines the effects of change on human social structure and behavior in terms of rural-urban migrations, social networks, and cultural resistance. Ultimately the research addresses the impact of rapid environmental and social change on institutions (e.g., state and federal agencies, non-governmental bodies).
The education and outreach efforts of this project focus on generating a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers. Students (K-12, undergraduate, graduate), post-doctoral associates, and junior faculty receive high-levels of training and mentoring. Particular emphasis is placed on promoting involvement of Alaska Natives, women, and other minorities underrepresented in science and technology. Established research clusters work to develop capacity throughout the State's urban and rural campuses. Outreach efforts target a broad array of stakeholders, all with vested interest in sustainability of Alaska's human and natural resources-from local community members to professionals in private business and state and federal agencies. These stakeholders, in turn, contribute to efforts that apply research findings to the realms of resource management, politics, and economic development.
Alaska EPSCoR's 2007-12 award, entitled "Resilience and Vulnerability in a Rapidly Changing North," supported a program of research in broad disciplinary components of physical science, biology, and social science. Within these respective components, particular emphasis was placed on permafrost, on plant-microbe interactions and landscape genetics, and on individual and community responses to climatic and social change. The primary intellectual drive of the project, however, was to foster integrative research which crossed disciplinary and institutional boundaries. To this end, the project also included an "Integration Core" which was charged with synthesizing information from these disciplinary components into functional and useful models. The breadth of this project led to a number of significant results in different disciplines. Researchers in the physical science component made key findings about permafrost, determining that outside factors such as groundwater, vegetation and soil conditions can have a more significant effect on permafrost extent than air temperature. Physical science researchers also developed the first new permafrost map of Alaska since 1965 and a predictive map of permafrost extent through 2100; built a statewide permafrost monitoring network along a north-south transect; explored techniques to build roads and bridges on unstable permafrost and in earthquake areas; and discovered glacial ice on Alaska’s Arctic coastal plain, a find which rewrote the area’s recent geologic history. Biology research stretched across the taxonomic spectrum, with students and faculty studying everything from shrews and spruce trees to moose and whales. A number of researchers focused on subsistence species migrations, especially those of caribou and salmon, and came to a greater understanding of how the genetic makeup of groups and species relate to their environment, enabling improved predictions of future genetic alteration as a result of climate change. Another focus was entomology, including experiments carried out by the lab of UAF faculty Derek Sikes, who conducted a fortuitous insect survey of the volcanic Aleutian island of Kasatochi shortly before it erupted. Sikes and his students have since conducted multiple groundbreaking studies of the island’s re-emerging populations and food webs. Social science researchers studied the links between climate change and community sustainability. One highlight was the work of UAF graduate student Robin Bronen, who focused on building a human-rights framework for climate refugees, based around the relocation of the Bering Sea coast village of Newtok. Another accomplishment was the drafting of the "Regional Energy Plan for Interior Alaska," a statement of the energy needs and goals of 42 Native villages scattered through Alaska’s Interior, by EPSCoR graduate students Jill Maynard and Becky Warren. Another prominent EPSCoR-supported project was UAF graduate student Jordan Lewis’ thesis analyzing how Alaska Native elders define successful aging. Alaska EPSCoR also contributed to Alaskan capacity in social science by funding three faculty hires in the field, one each at the University of Alaska’s Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau campuses. The focus of the Integration Core was the development, testing and refinement of multiple cutting-edge tools and techniques for mapping social and ecological systems. One key technique developed by the core is Social-Ecological Hotspots Mapping, through which social data (such as the values people attach to a region) can be mapped alongside biological and physical data to represent a social-ecological landscape. Other tools include Forecasting Environmental Resilience in Arctic Landscapes (FERAL), an agent-based model in which the actions of a given "agent" (a person or other entity) within a landscape create feedbacks which affect their surroundings; and Architecture for Integrated and Dynamic Data Analysis (AIDA), which converts qualitative information (such as words spoken in interviews) into quantitative data. Alaska EPSCoR supported career development at the university level by hiring faculty and postdoctoral researchers and by providing hundreds of research and travel grants to undergraduates, graduate students, junior faculty members, and interdisciplinary faculty research teams. EPSCoR outreach stretched to K-12 classrooms and to public forums across the state, reaching thousands of individuals, a majority of them rural and/or Alaska Native students. EPSCoR supported numerous education programs such as Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), through which K-12 students learned about climate change through scientific observations of the seasons, and the Alaska Rural Research Partnership, which partnered high school students with UA scientists on research projects. Alaska EPSCoR’s focus on interdisciplinary and broad-based research raised the profile of research at the University of Alaska and encouraged numerous research collaborations that stretched both across disciplines and across the state’s far-flung campuses. The program generated a wealth of significant new data, markedly increased research capacity at the university and in the state, and set the stage for future growth.
