Background Due to climate warming, plant species are shifting their ranges, trying to track their climatic niches. This can for example be displayed by range expansions or upward shifts of plants from lower elevations. Changes in community composition are occurring with novel lowland species invading into the alpine ecosystem. The RangeX project is an upslope READ MORE
Tag: RangeX
Research is not done in a flash in the best of times. Fieldwork, data analyzes and writing take time. But this time it took over ten years, two doctorates and one baby to get there. We have just published a new article in the scientific journal Ecography. The article describes how grass and grass-like species, READ MORE
Tundra might turn from carbon sink into carbon source due to global warming
Tundra ecosystems hold vast amounts of carbon, which is projected to be released into the atmosphere under climate warming. Our group contributed to this important and alarming new paper in Nature, led by researchers from Umeå University in Sweden. Using carbon flux data collected inside and outside open-top chambers (OTCs), we show that ecosystem respiration READ MORE
Camera surveillance of pollinators in alpine grasslands
Are alpine flowers visited more during the day, or during the night? Does the importance of nocturnal pollinators differ with elevation? How do alpine pollinators respond to warming treatments? And is it possible that some pollinators “bully” others away from flowers while foraging? These are all questions that insect surveillance cameras help to address. We READ MORE
Plant Functional Traits Course engages in South African RangeX sites
In December 2023, the 7th plant functional traits course (PFTC7) took place in the Drakensberg mountains of South Africa. We were particularly pleased that this led to a collaboration with the RangeX project. During PFTCs, research is usually conducted along an elevational gradient. This time, the highest location at ca. 3000m coincided with the high READ MORE
RangeX writing retreat in Ireland
In November 2023, the RangeX team spend a productive week in Ireland, delving into various tasks, data sets, and papers. Numerous constructive discussions ensued, generating ideas for future project outputs. We outlined the joint field experiment data paper, incorporating data sets from China, Switzerland, Norway, and South Africa. The team members focusing on aboveground interactions READ MORE
MSc thesis: Impacts of range-expanding plants on pollinator interactions
Project background As both native and exotic species shift their distributions in response to climate warming and through biological invasions, many expand their ranges across elevational gradients. This expansion results in the reassembly of ecological communities, which meditates the effects of climate warming on biodiversity and key ecosystem functions. RangeX is a multidisciplinary, replicated field READ MORE
MSc thesis: Disentangling drivers of plant population establishment after range expansion
Project background As both native and exotic species shift their distributions in response to climate warming and through biological invasions, many expand their ranges across elevational gradients. This expansion results in the reassembly of ecological communities, which meditates the effects of climate warming on biodiversity and key ecosystem functions. RangeX is a multidisciplinary, replicated field READ MORE