Abby Jackson

Hello, Abby! Did you make it to Fairbanks?

I did finally make it. And I’m loving it here.

I love that you can describe so much about a population from just a few individuals, specifically their DNA — that four-letter code that makes up every organism.

Great! I'm excited to talk to you about your new job. But first, let's chat about your research, which focuses on biological diversity and population genetics. What led you to that topic?

I got excited about population genetics during my first year as an undergraduate at Colorado State University. During student orientation, the Biology Department head at Colorado State, Mike Antolin, talked about his past research on population genetics on prairie dogs. At the time, I thought, "Hey, that's so cool. I want to do that!". I love that you can describe so much about a population from just a few individuals, specifically their DNA — that four-letter code that makes up every organism.

At what point did you branch into Antarctic work in particular?

That started around the same time, during my first year at Colorado State University. I worked on Antarctic ecology in Dr. Diana Wall's lab for four years. She has been part of the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program since its inception. At the time, I thought the research was fascinating and extremely cool science. Then, through connections in Dr. Wall's lab, I was serendipitously put in contact with my master's advisor, Dr. Byron Adams, at Brigham Young University.

Could you walk me through the focus of your master's thesis?

I like to describe my thesis as the "23 and Me" of nematodes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

I like to describe my thesis as the "23 and Me" of nematodes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Nematodes are kind of like microscopic worms in terms of their role and appearance, although taxonomically, they are distantly related. I used genetic techniques to describe their population structure. The McMurdo Dry Valleys are made from a series of valleys separated by mountain ranges running east to west. During the last glacial maximum, many valleys were inundated by glacial expansions, and paleo lakes froze over. Most of the valley floors were ice-covered, so soil metazoan-like nematodes would not exist there. So, I was testing hypotheses of refugia populations and seeing how that last glacial maximum has changed the genetic structure of these nematodes.

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That's super cool. What was your most significant finding? Did any big surprises come from your master's work, or did it agree with other studies?

This finding gives us reason to think these nematodes can be moved to new locations during the last glacial maximum, and glacial reworkings can homogenize these populations.

We found that the nematode populations are very structured by each of these valleys, which makes sense for a non-vagile organism. That is true, except for the valleys that were inundated during the last glacial maximum. This finding gives us reason to think these nematodes can be moved to new locations during the last glacial maximum, and glacial reworkings can homogenize these populations. Similar work has been done on the Collembola, or springtails, of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, and our findings agree with these other studies. Ours is also one of the few studies that looked at the genetic structure of nematode populations related to the current ecological conditions. I think measuring diversity, not just at the organismal level but also at the genetic level, might be a really important long-term monitoring tool for many LTER sites in the future.

That's so interesting. When you talk about the data, what exactly do you collect? How does that process work?

First, you pick your location. For me, that was areas of higher elevation to be a stand-in for refugia areas that these glacial expansions wouldn't have inundated, and then areas of lower elevation on the valley floors. After you pick your site, you take a little shovel, scoop some soil, put it in a bag, and then take it back to the laboratory. Some samples were analyzed at the Crary Laboratory at McMurdo Station, and then more analyses were completed at BYU. You extract nematodes from the soil with centrifugation, and after that, it's your standard DNA extraction for the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. The last step is running statistical analyses on the DNA of these individuals to compare across and among populations.

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Following up on fieldwork, you've been to Antarctica twice. Was your first opportunity during your master's with Dr. Adams?

Ten students and research technicians for the McMurdo LTER got to go down that season, and I think this experience of just ten people in the McMurdo Dry Valleys was super special. I felt really privileged to get to go down.

Yes, my first season was in 2021-22. When I first started Antarctic research as an undergraduate, I had no expectations that I would get to go to Antarctica. It's kind of like getting to go to the moon in some respects — there are really limited spaces to go there, and the people who do get to go seem to be so special and talented. During the first year of my master's in 2020-21, nobody went to the McMurdo Dry Valleys because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that was challenging for me to think about because my project relied on collecting soil samples. Luckily, BYU has a walk-in freezer full of three decades' worth of soil samples collected by the original McMurdo LTER researchers like Diana Wall, Ross Virginia, Byron Adams, and some New Zealand researchers. I was able to cherry-pick all these awesome sites from that freezer, some dating back to the 1990s. But luckily, I got to go to the field and collect new samples in 2021-22, which was a season with limited field capacity. Ten students and research technicians for the McMurdo LTER got to go down that season, and I think this experience of just ten people in the McMurdo Dry Valleys was super special. I felt really privileged to get to go down.

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That's amazing. And then you were a field technician for the second season?

Yes, I was there the first season as a student, but because of the limited capacity, I helped out on different LTER projects in addition to my own stuff. That second season, I had just graduated and defended my thesis the week before I deployed. I worked as a technician for the Stream Team, doing tasks similar to those I'd done that first season, such as helping with hydrology research for the McMurdo LTER.

How long were the field seasons, and what were your initial impressions the first time you went?

The first season lasted four months, and the second was only about two months. I think my initial impression was how grand that landscape is. It is obvious the massive forces required to shape that landscape into what it looks like and how it functions right now. The biota I was studying are dependent on those reconfigurations that happened millions and thousands of years ago. The legacies of these geologic forces are more influential on biotic conditions here. You get a sense of how unchanging that area is given its limited human and biological footprint which limits the capacity to change the landscape.

Also, I want to add that the first season was so different from the second season because the 2022-23 season had an expanded capacity for researchers to go down. It was a regular season again after COVID-19. After the limited 2021-22 season, it was night and day to see the hubbub of research activity going on in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. It's great to see the United States Antarctic Program in full research force and to see how much resources and support that requires.

The last time I went was before COVID happened, so 2021 must have been interesting. In addition to Antarctic fieldwork, you've been to two virtual SCAR meetings. Which ones were those, and how did they go?

I went to the 2020 and 2022 SCAR Open Science Conferences. Both of them were virtual, and obviously, virtual meetings are tough because it's so hard to network and really connect with other researchers. But even so, I thought they were incredibly helpful for interacting with other researchers in your field or similar fields. I walked away from both of those meetings with great ideas and tips on doing similar analyses for my research. I remember being in the same session as Gemma Collins from the University of Waikato (NZ) and being excited to replicate the type of analyses she was using for the population genetics of Antarctic Collembola.

It must have been tough starting your master’s during COVID-19.

Yes, although those virtual meetings were a nice low-cost and low-intimidation opportunity for students. It helped build my confidence to present in person when conferences started to return.

Definitely. So, you finished your master's and just moved to Fairbanks, and you're planning to work at the Toolik Research Station. Can you talk about your new job?

Yes, I'm really excited! I have a permanent research technician job at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Environmental Data Center. I feel incredibly lucky to have a permanent research technician position for a university. These types of positions, I think, are extremely important to creating lasting knowledge in how we do fieldwork.

The Arctic is a lot easier to get to than Antarctica, but still, it's difficult for most people and costly to travel to. So, researchers who need extra help or can't get here themselves rely on us. We're like remote access work hands, so we collect data for those scientists doing research in the Arctic tundra, whether that's the Arctic LTER, USGS, international researchers, early career researchers, or even NASA. We do meteorological station data loggers, soil sampling, snow sampling, vegetation sampling, and all that stuff.

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Everybody in this community is so willing to help, and as long as you reach out and have good intentions, Antarctic researchers are willing to give you advice or open doors for you.

Congrats on that position and on making the big move. I want to wrap up with the question: What advice would you give to early-career scientists who want to do Antarctic work?

I think first, find a subject you're passionate about, then apply it to Antarctic research. Antarctic research as a whole requires people from so many different backgrounds and specialties. Once you have a theme or focus, you can start connecting with current Antarctic researchers. Everybody in this community is so willing to help, and as long as you reach out and have good intentions, Antarctic researchers are willing to give you advice or open doors for you. We're so excited when others succeed or get where they want to go.

It is a great community. Thank you, and good luck with your work in the Arctic.