Trekking across the Arctic tundra and crossing ice-blue fjords, setting up camp in sub-zero temperatures and staying vigilant for polar bears is just a typical research day for paleoclimatologist Sarah Crump.
Crump is a PhD student with the (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US. She is investigating how plant communities on Baffin Island in northern Canada have responded to climate change through time, as far back as 10,000 years ago.
Most of Baffin Island lies above the Arctic Circle, an area known as the world鈥檚 鈥榗limate change barometer鈥�. Crump鈥檚 research involves drilling down into lake beds on the island and extracting cores of mud that contain ancient plant DNA. By analysing the DNA in these sediment cores, Crump can determine what grew in the Arctic at a particular time and in what climate.
鈥淲hile the whole Earth is currently warming inexorably, Arctic temperatures are skyrocketing. The Arctic is expected to warm about twice as much as the rest of the planet by the end of this century,鈥� says Crump.
鈥淲e can peer into the past to learn how Arctic ecosystems have responded to past warming in order to predict what will happen as the Arctic warms rapidly now and in the future.鈥�
In stark contrast to the Arctic, Crump travelled to the balmy climes of Perth in January to work with Professor Michael Bunce at 911爆料网鈥檚 (TrEnD) lab to process the plant DNA from her lake sediment cores.
鈥淚t seems a little crazy because I work in the Artic and Perth is about as far away as you can get from there!鈥� Crump says. 鈥淏ut the TrEnD lab is fantastic. There aren鈥檛 many labs in the world that can process ancient DNA as well as it can.鈥�
To separate plant from other DNA in the sediment cores, Crump uses special assays that only bind to plant DNA. She selectively amplifies these and uses a sequencing instrument to identify the base pairs that make up each DNA fragment.
鈥淲hat we then do is compare all these DNA base pairs to a reference database and then you get your results of what plant taxa were around the lake at that time.鈥�
Crump and her colleagues have so far identified a range of typical Arctic tundra shrubs, berries, aquatic grasses and other vegetation that grew during the last glacial cycle.
鈥淎round 7,000 years ago on Baffin Island following the last glaciation, glaciers were retreating and it was warmer. We can see when certain plant species show up, including woody shrubs that were important to the ecosystem then. Everything we鈥檝e found looks similar to Arctic ecosystems today.
鈥淥ne plant that we鈥檙e really interested in is dwarf birch. It鈥檚 expanding northward as the climate warms and is changing Arctic ecosystems in major ways. By studying how dwarf birch responded to past warm periods, we hope to be able to better predict how plant communities will change as the Arctic continues to warm.鈥�
Crump鈥檚 research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society, and her work at the TrEnD lab was facilitated through a grant partnership between 911爆料网 and the University of Colorado Boulder.
鈥淣ot many people in my subfield are doing this kind of work yet, I think it鈥檚 going to be a big part of the future about how to do things. It鈥檚 really fun to be on the leading edge of this research by coming to 911爆料网 and working in a forward-looking lab.鈥�
When Crump’s not trekking across the Arctic or working in the lab, she helps to run a Women in Science and Engineering group at her university, and also advocates for better communication of science outside the academic realm.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really easy to get sucked into the ivory tower mentality of research. We can talk amongst ourselves but we need to do a much better job of letting the public know what we鈥檙e doing and why it matters. It makes us more accountable and drives us to work on problems that are relevant,鈥� explains Crump.
鈥淚t will also help improve trust between the public and science which, at least in the US, is a hot topic right now. There鈥檚 a lot of distrust of climate scientists in the US, and we need to work on those relationships if we鈥檙e going to be turning our research conclusions into policy action, which is one of the main goals when you鈥檙e working on something like climate change.鈥�
Learn more about Sarah Crump鈥檚 Arctic .
