Global change
Our research into biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics under global change focuses on land management, climate change effects on biodiversity and ecosystems, and contemporary evolution to understand their effects on present and past biodiversity. This is done using a variety of methods from field and lab experiments, to big-data analyses, to reconstructions of past vegetation dynamics using sediment cores.
Main content
Current research includes:
Past, present and future of alpine biomes worldwide. This project aims to decipher the role of Pleistocene climate dynamics in driving present-day alpine biodiversity. The project will reconstruct the spatial distribution of alpine biomes during the last glacial cycle (last 130 thousand years) and quantify past connectivity dynamics, quantify alpine biodiversity (plants, terrestrial vertebrates) patterns worldwide and assess whether past connectivity left an imprint on present-day taxonomic diversity. In addition, it will assess whether future warm periods are predicted to negatively affect alpine biodiversity and thus provide evidence of high extinction risk for the near future.
Between the Fjords is an umbrella of multiple past and present projects (FunCaB, Funder, Incline, RangeX, Three-D, Seedclim, Landpress, Emerald) that use the landscape's natural gradients in climate to assess the effects of climate on (alpine) ecosystems directly and indirectly, e.g., mediated by plant-plant and plant-soil interactions, or changes in functional traits. Using elaborate field experiments in a climate grid of 12 sites (Vestland Climate Grid) along precipitation and temperature gradients, the projects assess the impacts of elevational species migration (Incline, RangeX), global-change drivers (Three-D), and above- and below-ground ecosystem functioning (FunCaB, Funder) in alpine grasslands, and similarly on heath species in coastal heathlands (LandPress).