Lab News

RECENT NEWS:
PIs Kelsey, Leffler and Beard traveled to Chevak to present science labs for high school students and give a presentation for the Chevak community about our research.

Welcome, Kaitlyn Purington, who is a new MS student in our lab. Kaitlyn works for the Utah Division of Wildlife and will be working with amphibians.

Whole group of us presented at ESA: Matteo Petit Bon, Emily Santos, Josh Leffler, Mia DiCianna, Cristina Chirvasa and Tyler Williams - all on our YK Delta research.

Post-doctoral researcher, Matteo Petit Bon, after 3.5 years at USU has been hired as an Assistant Professor North Carolina State University. Congratulations, Matteo!

April 2025: Shantell Garrett successfully defends her PhD dissertation. Congratulations, Shantell!

RECENT PRESENTATIONS:
October 2025: Karen Beard presents at Knowledge on Tap, Cache Bar, "Unwelcome guests: Coqui invasion in Hawaii"

September 2025: PI Leffler presents results at ITEX in Sweden: "Flooding has little impact on soil respiration and methanogenesis responses to temperature in high latitude wetlands and tundra"

September 2025: PI Kelsey presents results at ITEX in Sweden: "Warming and flooding influence CO₂ and CH₄ emissions differently in arctic coastal wetland and tundra landscapes"

August 2025: Lab talks at ESA:
Petit Bon, M.*, A.J. Leffler, K.C. Kelsey, T.J. Williams*, and K.H. Beard. Experimental flooding rapidly shifts coastal tundra toward a wetland state.

Santos, E.A.*, M. Petit Bon*, K.K. Bladen, K.C Kelsey, A.J. Leffler, and K.H. Beard. Flooding and warming shape plant functional trait responses in a high-latitude coastal wetland.

Chirvasa, C.*, M. Petit Bon*, K.K. Bladen, K.C Kelsey, A.J. Leffler, T.J. Williams*, and K.H. Beard. Rapid plant functional trait responses to multiple climate change forcings in Arctic coastal wetlands.

Williams, T.J.*, M. Petit Bon*, A.J. Leffler, K.C Kelsey, and K.H. Beard. Rising waters, warming temperatures and changing herbivore patterns: ecosystem responses in coastal high-latitude wetlands.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:
November 2025: PhD student, Shantell, published her second chapter in Ecosphere: "Quantification of the effect of lagomorph herbivory on grazing resources in a semi-arid rangeland" DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.70463 with me and Johan DuToit.

October 2025: PI Beard is part of a Drought-net paper in Science: Ohlert, T., M.D. Smith, and the IDE contributors. Drought intensity and duration interact to magnify losses in primary productivity. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ads8144

September 2025: Our lab group published "Responding to rising waters and temperatures: greenhouse gas flux from a high-latitude coastal wetland" KC Kelsey, AJ Leffler, MP Bon, BN Barr, KH Beard in Environmental Research Letters

July 2025: Past project manager and MS student, Brianna Barr, published her thesis research - "Salinity and Moisture Influence CO2 and CH4 Emissions From High‐Latitude Coastal Soils" - way to go, Bri!

March 2025: MS student, Taylor Saunders, successfully publishes her manuscript - 'Goose herbivory effects on early-stage litter decomposition in coastal Alaskan wetlands' - way to go, Taylor!