Given the difficulty of distinguishing between living and dead roots in the anaerobic bog, root ingrowth cores constructed of rigid polypropylene tubes and filled with commercial peat from a nearby bog are being used to capture newly-grown roots seasonally, across microtopographic positions, and throughout the peat profile.

Upon return to the laboratory, roots are removed from the peat, sorted by species, and separated into absorptive (first three root orders) and transport (4+ orders) fine roots, scanned for morphological characteristics, and analyzed for chemical composition.

We hypothesized that root growth would increase with warming and drying, but that this response would be species-specific. Dr. Avni Malhotra found that warming strongly increased ericaceous shrub root-length production, and larch root biomass production, but that the response was driven by drying of the peat.