Ryan Choi

Working with Karen Beard in the S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources, Ryan studies the impacts of climate change on the ecosystem function in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Alaska. He’s researching the phenology of sub-arctic tundra and the seasonal arrival of the Pacific black brant, a migratory bird. His long-term warming experiment is looking at the impacts of global warming on the way the birds interact with Hoppner’s Sedge, a plant scientifically known as carex subspathacea.

Ryan studies changes in the plants’ biomass and how much carbon is stored and released as the climate changes, and how nitrogen breaks down and cycles at different rates due to the warming and grazing interaction with the birds.

“Things are happening in the arctic and subarctic much more rapidly than they are at other latitudes, so we’re seeing these really pronounced changes and effects,” he said.

But this research has much broader impacts; similar studies are conducted around the world to determine how global warming is changing ecological relationships.

“The arctic is an amazing place,” Ryan said. “I enjoy working in remote places and this is a really cool opportunity to be able to look at how climate change is affecting this remote part of Alaska, with broader implications for the rest of the arctic region.”