Research
Broadly, our research activities are shaped by the following research questions: How do the natural and/or human-induced disturbance such as fire, land use and land cover changes, insect infestation and others influence the carbon cycling of terrestrial ecosystems (especially boreal forests and peatlands) in the contect of climate change? How would the carbon cycling of northern peatlands be changed under the changing climate at the global scale and/or regional scale? How do peatland vegetation communities dynamically respond to climate change? How does permafrost feedback to climate changes in terms of CO2 and methane cycling through its energy and hydrological controls on biogeochemistry? How can the peatland ecosystem be included in the global carbon-climate coupled model?
We have been using field experiments, measurements and ecosystem modeling to tackle some of these research questions.
We have Biogeochemistry and Ecohydrology Research Lab (BEL), funded by Canada Foundation Innivation (CFI), Research & Corporation of NL and Humber River Basin Research Initiative to support our research.
Currently, our research team is focusing on several themes such as
(1) Human impacts on boreal peatland ecosystems;
(2) Human impacts on water quality of boreal catchments based on spatial hydrological modelling;
(3) Simulating the biogeochemical cycling of northern (boreal) peatlands with respect to human disturbances and climate change.