Portrait of Will Cox
PhD Student
• Peatland plant communities • Lichen & bryophyte ecology • Carbon cycling
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology


Advisor: Merritt Turetsky

Peatland plant communities, lichen & bryophyte ecology, cryptogamic botany, population & community ecology, permafrost thaw, carbon cycling, climate change

My research is focused on the many varied impacts of permafrost thaw on plant communities in boreal peatlands. Working out of the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research network near Fairbanks, Alaska, I’ve spent the last few summers tracking changes in plant community composition and greenhouse gas flux rates along a rapidly changing permafrost thaw gradient. We hope to use these concurrent changes in the surface vegetation community and the subsurface permafrost integrity as an early warning system to identify potential hotspots of current and future thaw.

Education

  • B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Ecology & Biodiversity: Humboldt State University, 2016