The Toolik Lake Project: Terrestrial and Freshwater Research on Change in the Arctic

• Main Authors: Hobbie, J. E., Peterson, B. J., Shaver, G. R.
• Other Authors: MARINE BIOLOGICAL LAB WOODS HOLE MA
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1992
• Subjects: Ecology; Geography; Hydrology; Limnology and Potamology; *ECOSYSTEMS; *LAKES; *STREAMS; *TUNDRA; *FRESH WATER; *ARCTIC REGIONS; ADDITION; AIR; ALASKA; CHLOROPHYLLS; CLIMATE; CONTROL; DIVISION; EXCHANGE; FISHES; FLOW; FUNCTIONS; GRAZING; HEATING; HUMANS; INSECTS; MEASUREMENT; MONITORS; NUTRIENTS; PRODUCTIVITY; RADIATION; REMOVAL; RESOURCES; RIVERS; ROCK; SLOPE; SOLAR RADIATION; TEMPERATURE; TROUT; WATER; WATER FLOW; SYMPOSIA; Component Reports; *Toolik Lake projects; *Terrestrial; Arctic; Fairbanks; Arctic grayling; north slope; Tundra; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADP007312; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADP007312

The Toolik Lake research project in the foothills of the North Slope, Alaska, has collected data since 1975 with funding from the NSFs Division of Polar Programs and from the Long Term Ecological Research Program and Ecosystems Research Program of the Division of Biotic Systems and Resources. The broad goal is to understand and predict how ecosystems of tundra, lakes, and streams function and respond to change. One specific goal is to understand the extent of control by resources (bottom-up control) or by grazing and predation (top-down control). The processes and relationships are analyzed in both natural ecosystems and in ecosystems that have undergone long-term experimental manipulations to simulate effects of climate and human-caused change. These manipulations include the fertilization of lakes and steams, the addition and removal of lake trout from lakes, the changing of the abundance of arctic grayling in sections of rivers, the exclusion of grazers from tundra, and the shading, fertilizing, and heating of the tussock tundra. A second specific goal is to monitor year-to-year variability and to measure how rapidly long-term change occurs. The measurements include: for lakes, measurements of temperature, chlorophyll, primary productivity; for streams, nutrients, chlorophyll on riffle rocks, insect and fish abundance, and water flow; and for the tundra, amount of flowering, air temperature, solar radiation, and biomass. A third specific goal is to understand the exchange of nutrients between land and water. This article is from 'Proceedings of the International Conference on the Role of the Polar Regions in Global Change Held in Fairbanks, Alaska on 11-15 June 990. Volume 2', AD-A253 028, p378-383. See also Volume 1, AD-A253 027.