Moose and caribou could be parts of the puzzle for fighting climate change, says researcher

A MUN researcher is looking to get the poop on moose and caribou this summer, and figure out what impact they have on the environment and climate change when they defecate or die.

Kristy Ferraro, a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at Memorial University with a PhD from Yale's School of the Environment, is researching how moose and caribou affect the climate through depositing carbon into the boreal forests.

Ferraro said when scientists usually talk about climate change, they focus on the role of plants and microbes as well as environmental factors like temperature and precipitation.

"Animals are really left out of the picture. But as we're starting to learn more about animals and appreciate them, we're realizing what a big role they play in our environment," Ferraro told CBC Radio's Newfoundland Morning.

"And part of that is their role in carbon cycling and therefore climate change."

She hopes to start her fieldwork next summer in Fogo Island, where there is a caribou herd, and Terra Nova National Park, where there are moose, where she will figure out where caribou and moose are defecating and dying.

"Where they defecate and they die, they release all of that good nutrients in their body into the ground," Ferraro said. "It acts as a fertilizer, right? So it stimulates plant growth and potentially carbon cycling."

Carbon cycling is the process of how carbon moves between the atmosphere, soil, living creatures, and the ocean as well as human, artificial sources.

"Then what we're going to do is measure how those inputs interact with carbon cycling. Are they accelerating this cycle? Are they increasing plant growth or are they not? And how is that different in different environments throughout Newfoundland?"

Ferraro research is two-fold, she said. After she collects the data, she will create a model that can be used to figure out how caribou and moose impact carbon cycles on a large scale and how these models can work within existing large global models.

"With this project, I really want to develop a framework that thinks about how conservation — and potentially the reintroduction of animals in a way that aim[s] to combat climate change — can rely on and collaborate with these animals in a way that recognizes their intrinsic value," Ferraro said.

"But also leans on them to help them clean up this kind of ecological mess we've made with climate change."

Her research is supported by a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, which provides her with $140,000 in funding over two years. But she said she expects this research will extend beyond that timeframe.

"This project will probably last a bit longer than that as we learn about the intricate relationship these animals are having with their environment," said Ferraro.