WWU biology professor to complete 350-mile summer research trek on Alaska's North Slope

Western Washington University assistant professor of Biology Eric DeChaine will depart in June on a 350-mile trek across the mountains and tundra of Alaska’s North Slope as he continues his National Science Foundation-funded research on global climate change and how it affects biodiversity.

The specific goal of DeChaine’s research is to better understand how plants have reacted to historic climate change so scientists can better predict species’ reaction to the current worldwide changes in climate. To collect the data for his research, he seeks out certain types of rare alpine plants to compare their DNA with previous specimens, and to note how their territories are expanding or contracting as the global climate shifts.

“The wildflowers that color the tundra landscape hold clues to the secret of how arctic species have responded to climate change in the past. Beringia, the region encompassing Alaska and eastern Siberia, was one of the most important Ice Age refuges for high latitude species, from wooly mammoths to arctic poppies,” said DeChaine. “Our upcoming expedition along the Kokolik River will take us into the heart of Beringia to document changes in species distributions and collect specimens for genetic analyses.”

DeChaine’s routes into the Arctic each summer always read like something out of Jack London, and this year’s trip is no different – he and postdoctoral researcher Kurt Galbreath will be dropped off by a bush pilot and hike and paddle almost 350 miles, from the north face of the De Long Mountains down the wild, untouched Kokolik River system all the way to the icy Chukchi Sea.

Along the way, they will pass through tundra brimming with caribou, waters full of pink salmon and Arctic char, and finish the trip by emerging into the Kasegaluk Lagoon – often packed with beluga whales in early summer – on their way to the extraction point at the tiny fishing village of Point Lay.

Galbreath, a native of Pecatonica, Ill., with a doctorate in Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University, said experiencing organisms in their natural environment provides an essential link between theory and biology, fostering new questions and correcting preconceived notions about how species "ought to" behave in the wild.

“Fieldwork provides a better understanding of the landscape and its potential influence on the species that we study. For example, it is one thing to state in a journal article that a species colonized North America via the Bering Land Bridge, but it is another to stand in the middle of the Beringian landscape and envision the changing climates, fluctuating sea levels, and advancing and retreating glaciers that influenced that species' history,” Galbreath said. “And the thrill of exploration and discovery is a large part of what motivates me to do the work that I do as a biologist, and fieldwork, especially in remote and poorly documented places, plays a huge role in energizing and inspiring me to continue my research.”

DeChaine received a five-year $419,000 National Science Foundation grant that funds this research, and this is his fifth expedition to collect data. Previous destinations included the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and the Noatak River valley in Alaska. For a multimedia presentation on DeChaine’s trip to the Noatak in 2008, go to http://www.wwumultimedia.org/dechaine/2008/; to see a photo slideshow of his 2007 trip, go to http://www.wwumultimedia.org/dechaine/2007/2007slideshow.php.

For more information on this trip or his research, contact DeChaine at (360) 650-6575 or eric.dechaine@wwu.edu.