The overall research objective is to quantify how an advancing growing season and changes in the synchrony of vegetation-goose interactions alter the magnitudes and patterns of C and N cycling in the Y-K Delta. Two specific questions will be addressed with an experiment: 1) How does the timing of plant growth interact with goose arrival time to alter summer-long magnitudes of net ecosystem CO2 exchange, gross ecosystem photosynthesis, and ecosystem respiration? We will then use SAVANNA-YK, a biogeochemical model that considers grazing a critical control on vegetation and trace gas processes in the Y-K Delta, to predict how these ecosystem processes and plant-herbivore interactions will continue to change, altering the nature of ecosystem processes and landscape dynamics in years to come.
