Biocomplexity of Patterned Ground: Mould Bay Expedition

A team of 24 people from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and other organizations worked at Inuvik, NorthWest Territories (NWT) and Mould Bay, Prince Patrick Island, NWT during the period 12-27 July 2004, as part of the "Biocomplexity associated with biogeochemical cycles in arctic frost-boil ecosystems" project. This year's work was the third in a 5-year project. The main objective of the research is to investigate the properties of small patterned-ground ecosystems along a climate gradient from the coldest parts of the Arctic to the northern boreal forest. The team is studying earth hummocks, non-sorted circles, small non-sorted polygons, and turf hummocks - how they form, how they vary with climate and substrate, and their role in total ecosystem functions.

一支由24位来自阿拉斯加公平banks大学及其他机构的专家组成的团队，于2004年7月12日至27日期间，在西北地区（NWT）的伊努维克和帕特里克王子岛上的Mould湾进行工作，这是“与北极霜融生态系统生物地球化学循环相关的生物复杂性”项目的一部分。今年的工作是该5年项目的第三阶段。研究的主要目标是对气候梯度从北极最寒冷的地区到北方针叶林沿线的微小图案化地表生态系统特性进行探究。该团队正在研究地表丘、非分选圆圈、小型非分选多边形和草地丘——它们是如何形成的，如何随着气候和基质的改变而变化，以及它们在整体生态系统功能中的作用。