Department of Geography and PlanningBSc Honours Candidate (2023 expected)
Hi everyone!
My name is Eric, and I’m a fourth-year Environmental Life Sciences (SSP) student working with Dr. Neal Scott on my undergraduate thesis. My work primarily focuses on High Arctic permafrost disturbances and their effect on phosphorus availability. With the High Arctic warming faster compared to the rest of the world, thawing permafrost could potentially release great amounts of carbon, which could enter the atmosphere through cellular respiration by plants and soil microbes, creating a dangerous runaway positive feedback cycle. Phosphorus is an important nutrient needed by plants and microbes, being found in everything from nucleic acids to plant cell walls, so the availability of phosphorus could influence the fate of carbon released through permafrost thawing.