This episode of Research Chat features Caitlyn Lyons, a northern ecologist and environmentalist passionate about sustainability and science communication who is pursuing a PhD in Biological and Chemical Sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University, interviewed by Gifty Attiah, an international student pursuing a PhD in Geography, and has a particular interest in using geospatial tools to solve environmental and climate issues. Caitlyn and Gifty are both completing their field work in the Northwest Territories.
The episode features:
WLU Research Chat S02E09 – renamed to E10
Tue, 6/21 8:55AM • 22:18
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
northwest territories, research, permafrost, forests, climate change, thaw, plants, soil, wildfire, trees, nutrients, boreal forests, spruce, laurier, responding, talk, caitlyn, question, land, gifty
SPEAKERS
Unknown, Caitlyn Lyons, Gifty Attiah, Shawna Reibling
Unknown 00:04
[jingle plays]
Shawna Reibling 00:04
Welcome to the second season of Research Chat. In this season graduate students share the challenges of their research work. In this episode Gifty Attiah will interview Caitlyn Lyons.
Shawna Reibling 00:12
Gifty Attiah, pronouns she/her, is an international student pursuing a PhD in geography, a joint program between Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo. Gifty as part of the remote sensing of environmental change lab and has a particular interest in using geospatial tools to solve environmental and climate issues. She is in her second year of study with Dr. Kheyrollah Pour.
Shawna Reibling 00:45
Caitlyn Lyons, pronouns she/her, is a northern ecologist and environmentalist who is passionate about sustainability in science communication. She is pursuing a PhD in biological and chemical sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University. For her research, Caitlyn spends her summers in the Northwest Territories, exploring how trees in the boreal forest respond to climate change disturbances such as permafrost thaw, and wildfire. She's a recipient of the Canadian Graduate Scholarship for the doctoral program from NSERC the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. She holds a BSc in Environmental Sciences from the University of Guelph, and a master's in science and biology from the University of Western Ontario.
Shawna Reibling 01:26
Welcome to you both to Research Chat.
Shawna Reibling 01:29
In 2010, building on over 30 years of field research in the Northwest Territories, the government of the Northwest Territories and Laurier has formed a formal partnership that has significantly contributed to the growth of scientific monitoring and knowledge in the North over the past 10 plus years. The partnership has now been extended to 2030. I look forward to hearing more about your research projects in Canada's Northwest Territories.
Gifty Attiah 01:53
Hi, Caitlin, thank you for talking to me today. I'm elated to hear more about what you're doing. So first of all, I'm wondering, so are you part of a research group? And if you are, what role do you play in that as a collective?
Caitlyn Lyons 02:07
Thanks so much for the intro and the good question, Gifty. I am a part of the research group, I work with Dr. Jennifer Baltzer in the Forest Ecology and Research Group at Wilfrid Laurier. And within this group, we really focus on how forests are responding to global change. More recently, we started focusing a lot on Northern research. So this includes all across the Northwest Territories, and even some of northern Saskatchewan and BC as well. And we really focus on how the forest is responding to some of these global change factors such as wildfire, permafrost thaw, increased temperature, and all sorts of things like that that are related to climate change.
Gifty Attiah 02:57
Interesting. Thank you Caitlyn. What exactly do you do in this research group?
Caitlyn Lyons 03:03
Yeah, that's a great question. So kind of what I work on is really focusing on permafrost thaw, but specifically in areas that have experienced wildfire. So as many of you know, with climate change, we're seeing an increase in global temperatures. And this increase in global temperatures causing an increase in the frequency and the severity and even the extent of wildfires, and this is really impactful in Canada's north, because a lot of Canada's north, as you can imagine is cold. So all of a sudden, these cold environments are having a huge increase and wildfire activity. So furthermore, a lot of our soil in the north is actually frozen and this is what we call permafrost. So as wildfires happen, we're seeing permafrost thaw. So this means the soil that was once totally frozen, is now unfrozen and this is like a whole different ballgame for plants that live in these types of environments. So as permafrost thaws, what we see is actually a pulse of soil nutrients. So if you think about it, the soil's totally frozen, the plants can't use it, they can't get to it, there's nothing they can do. But now with wildfires, causing permafrost to thaw all this frozen nutrients' goodness is now all of a sudden available for plants to use. So what I'm really focusing on is can plants use this? Can they get there? And kind of how does that impact how the forest is regenerating postfire?
Gifty Attiah 04:47
Very interesting, actually. So I'm curious about something. So what does this nutrients mean for plants in that era? Is it a bad thing or is it a good thing? Can you shed more light on that?
Caitlyn Lyons 04:59
Yeah, for sure. It's always something I kind of grapple with my, my research because you typically think climate change, this is bad. Like this is bad for the ecosystems, it's bad for the plants is bad for the animals. And the truth is, everything is super complex when you do ecological studies. So this could be a good thing if the plants are able to get there. But specifically, with my research, I am working in the southern part of the Northwest Territories. And so the permafrost is sporadic, which means you can't find it everywhere. And it's often really deep in the soil. So it can be even like two meters deep or even deeper. So you can imagine a little tiny, black spruce seedling that's trying to regenerate from a wildfire. It needs to grow roots that are two meters long to get to those nutrients. So I'm not sure if the black spruce are able to do that. So that's part of the research question that I'm asking, I'm like, Can plants do that? Maybe they can when the permafrost is closer to the surface and maybe they can't when it's deeper, but maybe even there's other plants that can. And that's totally going to change how these forests are regenerating postfire. So where typically, we might see a lot of black spruce regeneration, we might be seeing a different species of plant that's actually able to get to those nutrients, which means all sorts of different things for habitat and forest regeneration for these regions.
Gifty Attiah 06:35
Wow, very interesting. This is a great segue into my next question then, How do you intend to explore these questions or these research that you're looking at?
Caitlyn Lyons 06:46
So this summer, I was actually super fortunate and able to go to the field, which was awesome. So I spent the summer in kind of the southern part of the Northwest Territories, so kind of near Yellowknife and then a little bit more south around the Great Slave area. So what I did is I found sites that have permafrost, and that had experienced wildfire. So in 2015, there was a huge wildfire year for the Northwest Territories. So I went to sites that had burned in that year and then I took soil cores. So basically, it's this metal cylinder that you twist into the ground, and that cylinder is hollow, and then you pull it up, and then there's soil inside of it. So I was able to take the soil samples all the way down to the permafrost and then I took the soil samples home. And then with the soil samples, I've been working on to measure rooting depth. So how deep do the roots go? Where are the nutrients in the soil cores? And things like that. And then the other thing that I'm going to work on next summer is, I'm actually going to do an experiment where you can apply labeled nutrients. So these nutrients are a little bit different than what you find in the natural environment. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put these nutrients at the permafrost, and then you can actually trace it, where it's going, you can see if the plants are able to take it up, you can see if it's in their roots, if it's in their leaves, or maybe it's just moved to a different part of the soil. So that's the next stage and then the big picture, which I'm really excited about is the government of Northwest Territories did a partnership with the National Forest Inventory. So the National Forest Inventory, monitors, forest conditions all across Canada. But they hadn't had a bunch of sites in the north. So they partnered with the government of Northwest Territories, and they were able to put all these permanent monitoring plots in the Northwest Territories. So I have a bunch of data on the forest conditions across the Northwest Territories, which is great, and so I'm going to look at the big picture to see how these forests are responding with this data.
Gifty Attiah 09:11
Very interesting. I'm curious about something. I don't know if you've gotten there, but what do you expect to get from this data? And how can it support your existing research?
Caitlyn Lyons 09:22
So with this data, they went in the early 2000s and they went and they measured all the trees. So how big they were, what trees were there, and all these sorts of things. And then they went again 10 years later, and they measured all these trees again. So I have this time period to see how the forests have changed over 10 years. And then I also have information on permafrost. So I also know how the permafrost conditions have changed over the past 10 years. So then I can look at to see how many new trees grew over 10 years. Did the trees grow a lot? Did some trees die? Did different species die? And things like that. So I can get an information on connecting how the trees are responding with this change in permafrost conditions over the past 10 years.
Gifty Attiah 10:11
That is really amazing. It's always interesting to see how things have changed over time, right? And you're able to see the impacts of the environmental these changes. Brilliant, impressive.
Caitlyn Lyons 10:23
Yeah, it's a great dataset. I'm very fortunate.
Gifty Attiah 10:26
Over the course of the research, what have you reflected on? Are there new things which have made you look at things in a different perspective?
Caitlyn Lyons 10:32
So this summer was actually my first summer in the Northwest Territories and we actually do a lot of work in Indigenous communities, because we're fortunate that they allow us onto their land, to do some of our work. And one thing I've never really appreciated before is how lucky we are to do that. These communities not only help us get onto their land, but they support us while we're on their land, which is really fantastic. And that's something I'd never really experienced before and learned a lot about. And through this process of working with these communities, I noticed a difference in terminology. It's just really different. So when I talk about my work, I say, "Oh, I have field sites in the Northwest Territory. And I go to these field sites, and I do these things". But when you talk with these communities, they say "the land", they just talk about it differently and talk about it in such a respectful way, where it's sharing. It's not what the land provides them. It's what they provide to the land the land provides to them. And it just really caused me to pause and reflect and just think about outside of myself outside of my science, what it means to be on the land. So that was something I really learned this summer and I found it really interesting. And I now when I try to talk about my work, I say, "when I'm on the land" instead of when, "I'm at my field sites" where when I say my field sites, I'm taking ownership, and it's not actually mine. So that was cool.
Gifty Attiah 12:17
Well, it's always in a new team. It's just nice to see how they appreciate the land. And I'm very glad I spoke to you about this, because it also gives me a different perspective in my own research so, thank you for that. Talking about things, what are the next steps that you hope to work on? Because you talk about what you've reflected on, so based on your reflections, what do you think your next steps will be? And how do you tend to achieve them?
Caitlyn Lyons 12:44
Yeah, that's a super great question and a hard one. So I think the next steps are, I'm working towards planning my next field season. I think, with that, and I'm very fortunate to be a part of a research group that has such connections with the communities that we work in. So I've kind of been adopted into that, which has been great. So I think I'm going to work to really honor that connection with these communities. A lot of my work is in the community of Kakisa so I'm just going to be really respectful and continue to appreciate the community for helping us and working with us to do our science. So I'm just going to really be cognizant of that and mindful of that, when I'm prepping my field season this summer.
Gifty Attiah 13:38
Great. That's impressive. As you know, we've been in this COVID wake with so many uncertainties going on here and there. So personally, how has this affected your school experience? Or both in your research and in your own personal communication?
Caitlyn Lyons 13:55
Yeah, for sure, I have found COVID to be quite challenging. I think the biggest thing I struggle with is this loss of community and the sense of community is a lot harder to find during COVID. And that also kind of stems into motivation. So I often find myself struggling to remind myself, what I'm contributing to with my science and why my science is important and what I'm doing this for. And it's really hard to do that when you spend a lot of time on your own with all these social distancing measures. So I have found that extremely challenging with COVID. But something else has been really great about COVID is the physical barriers aren't there anymore, right? You can reach out to anyone in the world and ask for help and they'll respond and just be so great and so caring and so awesome. So I think that's been really, really great. So whenever I find them struggling don't feel like I'm part of a community anymore, I often lean on those new collaborations I've been able to make throughout COVID, which has been fantastic.
Gifty Attiah 15:10
Wonderful. You mentioned climate change in relation to your research. Could you just give me a broad overview of how this is related, and what impact has has on your research?
Caitlyn Lyons 15:23
I'll talk a little bit about climate change, but also talk a little bit about forests in general. So forests are super important. They provide a lot of really great things for us and for nature. They provide habitat, they provide forage for animals, they also are climate mitigators, right? So trees, uptake carbon, there's so much carbon in soils, and the forest is all part of that. So with climate warming and climate change, as we're seeing this increase in temperature, and this increase in co2 emissions, forests can play a big part in climate mitigations and they're super important in that way. So I think it's really important for us to understand how these forests are responding to global climate change.
Gifty Attiah 16:13
Thank you for your answer. I think it's also interesting to see how climate change affects different facets of what we're doing, right? And it's nice to see people working to provide information on that. One last thing, is there anything that maybe we haven't touched on that you'd like to share, which is important, and you want people to know about concerning your research?
Caitlyn Lyons 16:38
I guess I'll just echo a little bit of understanding that climate change is complex. And it's not straightforward and there are those positive and negative implications of climate change are very hard to understand and they're hard to disentangle.
Gifty Attiah 16:55
We've talked about several things already. But one thing I want to ask you is what does Ecosystem Approach mean to your research?
Caitlyn Lyons 17:05
Yeah, that's a super great question and something that I sometimes I struggle with, with my own research. So a lot of my questions are very small, and they're very detailed, specific, right? I'm understanding where those nutrients are going from permafrost thaw. That's very small and narrow minded. But one thing that I'm really trying to get out with my research is scaling up to that ecosystem, right? So that was, that's where the National Forest Inventory data comes in, right? We have all this information on how forests, the boreal forests in the Northwest Territories have changed over the past period of time. So it's really taking those small scale questions, understanding those mechanisms and scaling up to the ecosystem level so we can make broad predictions and understandings of how climate change is impacting the boreal forests as a whole. But we need to understand these small mechanistic things, to draw that bigger picture and make those connections.
Gifty Attiah 18:16
That is amazing, because as someone who looks at a broader overview, I can appreciate how it's important to be able to understand those mechanisms, which get you there. So it's interesting to have that as well in the research. So when we talk about the North West Territories, it's quite interesting, because a lot of people do not really know the landscape, which is there, right? Because we think about the cold, and it's so hard to imagine what exactly goes on there. So my question to you is, how is the landscape like and how is it changing? Is climate change having a significant impact, especially in terms of forest?
Shawna Reibling 18:55
Yeah, for sure. That's an awesome question Gifty, and I'm going to draw on a lot of other research that's gone in my lab prior to me starting here at Laurier. So permafrost, or frozen soil, is what this landscape is accustomed to. That's what these forests are used to being on, they've evolved to live on permafrost. And so even with black spruce, a lot of people have noticed that their routing systems are very lateral instead of vertical. So what we're seeing is when permafrost is thawing, they don't have the integrity to stay up anymore. They're often called "drunken trees" because they fall over. And that's also from permafrost thaw where we're seeing all the frozen water that was in this frozen soil is now released as well so that's causing a lot of water to accumulate, also making it hard for trees to stand up. So my supervisor, Dr. Jennifer Baltzer, recently published a paper and she found that what we're seeing over time with permafrost thaw and with climate change is a reduction in the amount of black spruce we see. And that's a tree that is found everywhere in the Northwest Territories, that tree is what you associate the Northwest Territories with. So if we start to see last black spruce and those black spruce trees being replaced with a different type of tree that's going to really change how these ecosystem works in terms of habitat and forage and different plants interacting with each other. So it's really important, because these northern systems are so accustomed to this permafrost environment and now with permafrost loss. We're just seeing a lot of changes. And it's hard to know what's going to happen next, and how these ecosystems are going to respond.
Gifty Attiah 21:00
Thank you, Caitlin, for painting such a vivid picture of the situation going on. Thank you so much for answering my questions today. It's been amazing talking to you. I found a new perspective, I understand things better in your research. That has been a pleasure.
Caitlyn Lyons 21:17
Thanks so much. Gifty. That was so kind. Thank you.
WLU Research Chat S02E09 – renamed to E10
Tue, 6/21 8:55AM • 22:18
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
northwest territories, research, permafrost, forests, climate change, thaw, plants, soil, wildfire, trees, nutrients, boreal forests, spruce, laurier, responding, talk, caitlyn, question, land, gifty
SPEAKERS
Unknown, Caitlyn Lyons, Gifty Attiah, Shawna Reibling
Unknown 00:04
[jingle plays]
Shawna Reibling 00:04
Welcome to the second season of Research Chat. In this season graduate students share the challenges of their research work. In this episode Gifty Attiah will interview Caitlyn Lyons.
Shawna Reibling 00:12
Gifty Attiah, pronouns she/her, is an international student pursuing a PhD in geography, a joint program between Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo. Gifty as part of the remote sensing of environmental change lab and has a particular interest in using geospatial tools to solve environmental and climate issues. She is in her second year of study with Dr. Kheyrollah Pour.
Shawna Reibling 00:45
Caitlyn Lyons, pronouns she/her, is a northern ecologist and environmentalist who is passionate about sustainability in science communication. She is pursuing a PhD in biological and chemical sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University. For her research, Caitlyn spends her summers in the Northwest Territories, exploring how trees in the boreal forest respond to climate change disturbances such as permafrost thaw, and wildfire. She's a recipient of the Canadian Graduate Scholarship for the doctoral program from NSERC the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. She holds a BSc in Environmental Sciences from the University of Guelph, and a master's in science and biology from the University of Western Ontario.
Shawna Reibling 01:26
Welcome to you both to Research Chat.
Shawna Reibling 01:29
In 2010, building on over 30 years of field research in the Northwest Territories, the government of the Northwest Territories and Laurier has formed a formal partnership that has significantly contributed to the growth of scientific monitoring and knowledge in the North over the past 10 plus years. The partnership has now been extended to 2030. I look forward to hearing more about your research projects in Canada's Northwest Territories.
Gifty Attiah 01:53
Hi, Caitlin, thank you for talking to me today. I'm elated to hear more about what you're doing. So first of all, I'm wondering, so are you part of a research group? And if you are, what role do you play in that as a collective?
Caitlyn Lyons 02:07
Thanks so much for the intro and the good question, Gifty. I am a part of the research group, I work with Dr. Jennifer Baltzer in the Forest Ecology and Research Group at Wilfrid Laurier. And within this group, we really focus on how forests are responding to global change. More recently, we started focusing a lot on Northern research. So this includes all across the Northwest Territories, and even some of northern Saskatchewan and BC as well. And we really focus on how the forest is responding to some of these global change factors such as wildfire, permafrost thaw, increased temperature, and all sorts of things like that that are related to climate change.
Gifty Attiah 02:57
Interesting. Thank you Caitlyn. What exactly do you do in this research group?
Caitlyn Lyons 03:03
Yeah, that's a great question. So kind of what I work on is really focusing on permafrost thaw, but specifically in areas that have experienced wildfire. So as many of you know, with climate change, we're seeing an increase in global temperatures. And this increase in global temperatures causing an increase in the frequency and the severity and even the extent of wildfires, and this is really impactful in Canada's north, because a lot of Canada's north, as you can imagine is cold. So all of a sudden, these cold environments are having a huge increase and wildfire activity. So furthermore, a lot of our soil in the north is actually frozen and this is what we call permafrost. So as wildfires happen, we're seeing permafrost thaw. So this means the soil that was once totally frozen, is now unfrozen and this is like a whole different ballgame for plants that live in these types of environments. So as permafrost thaws, what we see is actually a pulse of soil nutrients. So if you think about it, the soil's totally frozen, the plants can't use it, they can't get to it, there's nothing they can do. But now with wildfires, causing permafrost to thaw all this frozen nutrients' goodness is now all of a sudden available for plants to use. So what I'm really focusing on is can plants use this? Can they get there? And kind of how does that impact how the forest is regenerating postfire?
Gifty Attiah 04:47
Very interesting, actually. So I'm curious about something. So what does this nutrients mean for plants in that era? Is it a bad thing or is it a good thing? Can you shed more light on that?
Caitlyn Lyons 04:59
Yeah, for sure. It's always something I kind of grapple with my, my research because you typically think climate change, this is bad. Like this is bad for the ecosystems, it's bad for the plants is bad for the animals. And the truth is, everything is super complex when you do ecological studies. So this could be a good thing if the plants are able to get there. But specifically, with my research, I am working in the southern part of the Northwest Territories. And so the permafrost is sporadic, which means you can't find it everywhere. And it's often really deep in the soil. So it can be even like two meters deep or even deeper. So you can imagine a little tiny, black spruce seedling that's trying to regenerate from a wildfire. It needs to grow roots that are two meters long to get to those nutrients. So I'm not sure if the black spruce are able to do that. So that's part of the research question that I'm asking, I'm like, Can plants do that? Maybe they can when the permafrost is closer to the surface and maybe they can't when it's deeper, but maybe even there's other plants that can. And that's totally going to change how these forests are regenerating postfire. So where typically, we might see a lot of black spruce regeneration, we might be seeing a different species of plant that's actually able to get to those nutrients, which means all sorts of different things for habitat and forest regeneration for these regions.
Gifty Attiah 06:35
Wow, very interesting. This is a great segue into my next question then, How do you intend to explore these questions or these research that you're looking at?
Caitlyn Lyons 06:46
So this summer, I was actually super fortunate and able to go to the field, which was awesome. So I spent the summer in kind of the southern part of the Northwest Territories, so kind of near Yellowknife and then a little bit more south around the Great Slave area. So what I did is I found sites that have permafrost, and that had experienced wildfire. So in 2015, there was a huge wildfire year for the Northwest Territories. So I went to sites that had burned in that year and then I took soil cores. So basically, it's this metal cylinder that you twist into the ground, and that cylinder is hollow, and then you pull it up, and then there's soil inside of it. So I was able to take the soil samples all the way down to the permafrost and then I took the soil samples home. And then with the soil samples, I've been working on to measure rooting depth. So how deep do the roots go? Where are the nutrients in the soil cores? And things like that. And then the other thing that I'm going to work on next summer is, I'm actually going to do an experiment where you can apply labeled nutrients. So these nutrients are a little bit different than what you find in the natural environment. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put these nutrients at the permafrost, and then you can actually trace it, where it's going, you can see if the plants are able to take it up, you can see if it's in their roots, if it's in their leaves, or maybe it's just moved to a different part of the soil. So that's the next stage and then the big picture, which I'm really excited about is the government of Northwest Territories did a partnership with the National Forest Inventory. So the National Forest Inventory, monitors, forest conditions all across Canada. But they hadn't had a bunch of sites in the north. So they partnered with the government of Northwest Territories, and they were able to put all these permanent monitoring plots in the Northwest Territories. So I have a bunch of data on the forest conditions across the Northwest Territories, which is great, and so I'm going to look at the big picture to see how these forests are responding with this data.
Gifty Attiah 09:11
Very interesting. I'm curious about something. I don't know if you've gotten there, but what do you expect to get from this data? And how can it support your existing research?
Caitlyn Lyons 09:22
So with this data, they went in the early 2000s and they went and they measured all the trees. So how big they were, what trees were there, and all these sorts of things. And then they went again 10 years later, and they measured all these trees again. So I have this time period to see how the forests have changed over 10 years. And then I also have information on permafrost. So I also know how the permafrost conditions have changed over the past 10 years. So then I can look at to see how many new trees grew over 10 years. Did the trees grow a lot? Did some trees die? Did different species die? And things like that. So I can get an information on connecting how the trees are responding with this change in permafrost conditions over the past 10 years.
Gifty Attiah 10:11
That is really amazing. It's always interesting to see how things have changed over time, right? And you're able to see the impacts of the environmental these changes. Brilliant, impressive.
Caitlyn Lyons 10:23
Yeah, it's a great dataset. I'm very fortunate.
Gifty Attiah 10:26
Over the course of the research, what have you reflected on? Are there new things which have made you look at things in a different perspective?
Caitlyn Lyons 10:32
So this summer was actually my first summer in the Northwest Territories and we actually do a lot of work in Indigenous communities, because we're fortunate that they allow us onto their land, to do some of our work. And one thing I've never really appreciated before is how lucky we are to do that. These communities not only help us get onto their land, but they support us while we're on their land, which is really fantastic. And that's something I'd never really experienced before and learned a lot about. And through this process of working with these communities, I noticed a difference in terminology. It's just really different. So when I talk about my work, I say, "Oh, I have field sites in the Northwest Territory. And I go to these field sites, and I do these things". But when you talk with these communities, they say "the land", they just talk about it differently and talk about it in such a respectful way, where it's sharing. It's not what the land provides them. It's what they provide to the land the land provides to them. And it just really caused me to pause and reflect and just think about outside of myself outside of my science, what it means to be on the land. So that was something I really learned this summer and I found it really interesting. And I now when I try to talk about my work, I say, "when I'm on the land" instead of when, "I'm at my field sites" where when I say my field sites, I'm taking ownership, and it's not actually mine. So that was cool.
Gifty Attiah 12:17
Well, it's always in a new team. It's just nice to see how they appreciate the land. And I'm very glad I spoke to you about this, because it also gives me a different perspective in my own research so, thank you for that. Talking about things, what are the next steps that you hope to work on? Because you talk about what you've reflected on, so based on your reflections, what do you think your next steps will be? And how do you tend to achieve them?
Caitlyn Lyons 12:44
Yeah, that's a super great question and a hard one. So I think the next steps are, I'm working towards planning my next field season. I think, with that, and I'm very fortunate to be a part of a research group that has such connections with the communities that we work in. So I've kind of been adopted into that, which has been great. So I think I'm going to work to really honor that connection with these communities. A lot of my work is in the community of Kakisa so I'm just going to be really respectful and continue to appreciate the community for helping us and working with us to do our science. So I'm just going to really be cognizant of that and mindful of that, when I'm prepping my field season this summer.
Gifty Attiah 13:38
Great. That's impressive. As you know, we've been in this COVID wake with so many uncertainties going on here and there. So personally, how has this affected your school experience? Or both in your research and in your own personal communication?
Caitlyn Lyons 13:55
Yeah, for sure, I have found COVID to be quite challenging. I think the biggest thing I struggle with is this loss of community and the sense of community is a lot harder to find during COVID. And that also kind of stems into motivation. So I often find myself struggling to remind myself, what I'm contributing to with my science and why my science is important and what I'm doing this for. And it's really hard to do that when you spend a lot of time on your own with all these social distancing measures. So I have found that extremely challenging with COVID. But something else has been really great about COVID is the physical barriers aren't there anymore, right? You can reach out to anyone in the world and ask for help and they'll respond and just be so great and so caring and so awesome. So I think that's been really, really great. So whenever I find them struggling don't feel like I'm part of a community anymore, I often lean on those new collaborations I've been able to make throughout COVID, which has been fantastic.
Gifty Attiah 15:10
Wonderful. You mentioned climate change in relation to your research. Could you just give me a broad overview of how this is related, and what impact has has on your research?
Caitlyn Lyons 15:23
I'll talk a little bit about climate change, but also talk a little bit about forests in general. So forests are super important. They provide a lot of really great things for us and for nature. They provide habitat, they provide forage for animals, they also are climate mitigators, right? So trees, uptake carbon, there's so much carbon in soils, and the forest is all part of that. So with climate warming and climate change, as we're seeing this increase in temperature, and this increase in co2 emissions, forests can play a big part in climate mitigations and they're super important in that way. So I think it's really important for us to understand how these forests are responding to global climate change.
Gifty Attiah 16:13
Thank you for your answer. I think it's also interesting to see how climate change affects different facets of what we're doing, right? And it's nice to see people working to provide information on that. One last thing, is there anything that maybe we haven't touched on that you'd like to share, which is important, and you want people to know about concerning your research?
Caitlyn Lyons 16:38
I guess I'll just echo a little bit of understanding that climate change is complex. And it's not straightforward and there are those positive and negative implications of climate change are very hard to understand and they're hard to disentangle.
Gifty Attiah 16:55
We've talked about several things already. But one thing I want to ask you is what does Ecosystem Approach mean to your research?
Caitlyn Lyons 17:05
Yeah, that's a super great question and something that I sometimes I struggle with, with my own research. So a lot of my questions are very small, and they're very detailed, specific, right? I'm understanding where those nutrients are going from permafrost thaw. That's very small and narrow minded. But one thing that I'm really trying to get out with my research is scaling up to that ecosystem, right? So that was, that's where the National Forest Inventory data comes in, right? We have all this information on how forests, the boreal forests in the Northwest Territories have changed over the past period of time. So it's really taking those small scale questions, understanding those mechanisms and scaling up to the ecosystem level so we can make broad predictions and understandings of how climate change is impacting the boreal forests as a whole. But we need to understand these small mechanistic things, to draw that bigger picture and make those connections.
Gifty Attiah 18:16
That is amazing, because as someone who looks at a broader overview, I can appreciate how it's important to be able to understand those mechanisms, which get you there. So it's interesting to have that as well in the research. So when we talk about the North West Territories, it's quite interesting, because a lot of people do not really know the landscape, which is there, right? Because we think about the cold, and it's so hard to imagine what exactly goes on there. So my question to you is, how is the landscape like and how is it changing? Is climate change having a significant impact, especially in terms of forest?
Shawna Reibling 18:55
Yeah, for sure. That's an awesome question Gifty, and I'm going to draw on a lot of other research that's gone in my lab prior to me starting here at Laurier. So permafrost, or frozen soil, is what this landscape is accustomed to. That's what these forests are used to being on, they've evolved to live on permafrost. And so even with black spruce, a lot of people have noticed that their routing systems are very lateral instead of vertical. So what we're seeing is when permafrost is thawing, they don't have the integrity to stay up anymore. They're often called "drunken trees" because they fall over. And that's also from permafrost thaw where we're seeing all the frozen water that was in this frozen soil is now released as well so that's causing a lot of water to accumulate, also making it hard for trees to stand up. So my supervisor, Dr. Jennifer Baltzer, recently published a paper and she found that what we're seeing over time with permafrost thaw and with climate change is a reduction in the amount of black spruce we see. And that's a tree that is found everywhere in the Northwest Territories, that tree is what you associate the Northwest Territories with. So if we start to see last black spruce and those black spruce trees being replaced with a different type of tree that's going to really change how these ecosystem works in terms of habitat and forage and different plants interacting with each other. So it's really important, because these northern systems are so accustomed to this permafrost environment and now with permafrost loss. We're just seeing a lot of changes. And it's hard to know what's going to happen next, and how these ecosystems are going to respond.
Gifty Attiah 21:00
Thank you, Caitlin, for painting such a vivid picture of the situation going on. Thank you so much for answering my questions today. It's been amazing talking to you. I found a new perspective, I understand things better in your research. That has been a pleasure.
Caitlyn Lyons 21:17
Thanks so much. Gifty. That was so kind. Thank you.
Shawna Reibling 21:20
Thank you to you both for chatting about your research. In the next episode Gifty and Caitlyn will continue to chat about Gifty's research area.
Unknown 21:30
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Shawna Reibling 21:36
Please subscribe to Research Chat on your favorite podcast player to hear new episodes. Visit wlu.ca/research-chat to read a follow up article show notes and related links. Research Chat is a partnership between the Office of Research Services, the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, and the Laurier Library. Thank you to everyone who's contributed to the creation of Research Chat. A gratitude list can be found on our web page
Unknown 22:12
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Shawna Reibling 21:20
Thank you to you both for chatting about your research. In the next episode Gifty and Caitlyn will continue to chat about Gifty's research area.
Unknown 21:30
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Shawna Reibling 21:36
Please subscribe to Research Chat on your favorite podcast player to hear new episodes. Visit wlu.ca/research-chat to read a follow up article show notes and related links. Research Chat is a partnership between the Office of Research Services, the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, and the Laurier Library. Thank you to everyone who's contributed to the creation of Research Chat. A gratitude list can be found on our web page
Unknown 22:12
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