Category: BIO299

Since 2015, the Plant Functional Traits Courses have collected ecosystem gas fluxes data in China, Peru, Svalbard, western Norway and South Africa. But since 2015, the method to process such data has also evolved a lot, and we have now developed the fluxible R package to make it reproducible and faster. There is now an READ MORE

To solve the biodiversity crisis, we need to stop the spread of alien species, stop sacrificing nature to build stuff, and protect areas and species that need protection. But to do so, people need to understand, know, and value nature and biodiversity. In this project we will try to figure out what people know about READ MORE

In this project you get to work with climate data from microclimate loggers, and local climate stations. We use these data to fully disentangle the effect of mini-greenhouses, called Open-Top Chambers (OTCs) that are being used in climate change experiments in alpine and arctic ecosystems worldwide to investigate the effect of climate warming on vegetation. READ MORE

Often when we characterize plant growth and development, we focus on adult’s that are already established. However, one of the most critical life-phases is germination and early seedling establishment. Here we focus on the important coastal heathland ecosystems of Norway, and using seed of Calluna vulgaris collected from across latitudinal gradients, different heathland land-use histories, READ MORE

      Often when we characterize plant growth and development, we focus on the above-ground, but less-so on the below-ground. Here we focus on the important heathland ecosystems of Norway, and we take a dive below to better understand how these communities are utilizing resources such as water and nutrients below-ground. We have several READ MORE

Carbon storage is an important ecosystem service, yet we know very little about how much our ecosystems store. Semi-natural systems are especially understudied. First results show that these ecosystems might be some of the most carbon rich! Question: How much soil carbon is stored in western Norwegian semi-natural ecosystems, specifically coastal heathlands and grasslands? For READ MORE

Leaf temperatures have a major influence on plant growth and development, e.g. photosynthesis rates, and thermal tolerance limits. However, our ability to measure such important characteristics has until recently been limited. Now with thermal imagery we can measure leaf temperatures directly! Learn to analyze thermal images collected on dwarf-shrub canopies across Norway. compare thermal profiles READ MORE

In the DURIN project, we are investigating how environmental factors and vegetation characteristics impact ecosystem functioning and carbon dynamics in heathland ecosystems. To better understand how dwarf-shrubs are distributing to their above ground carbon resources, we will assess patterns of whole plant standing biomass, as well as leaf longevity, and relative investment into stems and READ MORE