Ongoing projects
On this page we have gathered ongoing projects specifically funded by BECC. They are listed in the following order:
PhD projects
Start: 2021
The overall aim of the project is to develop, test and apply methodology for detection and quantification of spatially explicit drought effects on Nordic agricultural and forest ecosystems and their productivity. Furthermore, it aims to develop readiness for the next drought by developing policy and management capability based on remote sensing integrated with meteorological and other environmental data.
Contact
PhD student
Mitro Müller - portal.research.lu.se
Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
mitro [dot] muller [at] nateko [dot] lu [dot] se (mitro[dot]muller[at]nateko[dot]lu[dot]se)
Supervisor
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Torbern Tagesson, (INES, LU)
Co-applicants: Åsa Kasimir (Earth Sciences, UGOT); Patrik Vestin (INES, LU)
Collaborator: Louise C. Andresen, Earth Sciences, UGOT
Postdoc: Rhiannon Mondav — Lund University
About the project
A climate mitigation and adaptation strategy applicable for Sweden is rewetting of drained peatlands, which can both aid in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and create a landscape with higher biodiversity being more resilient to drought/flooding and forest fires.
The main aim with this project is to improve our understanding of the impact this climate adaptation and mitigation strategy has on the activity of soil microbial communities, and in turn their influence on the land atmosphere exchange of greenhouse gasses (GHG). A large-scale experiment at the Skogaryd Research Catchment provides a unique opportunity to study the impact of rewetting this peatland on the (1) the functional activity and diversity in the soil microbial community; and (2) to relate this to other environmental parameters such as GHG fluxes. Analyzing soil samples during this initial phase will be very important for catching the immediate impact of the rewetting on the soil microbial community, which can be connected with existing measurements on GHG emissions expected to give a pulse immediately after rewetting and then gradually change.
Knowledge on soil function and microbial activity is of need for ecosystem modeling, feeding into policy decisions on rewetting for climate mitigation and adaptation.
2022
Can functional traits improve forecasting of environmental stressors on biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and ecosystem services in Sweden’s forests under climate change?
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Richard Walters (CEC, Lund University)
Co-applicant: Lars Gamfeldt (Department of Marine Science, University of Gothenburg)
Co-applicant: Henrik Smith (Department of Biology & CEC, Lund University)
Postdoc: Avril Weinbach — Lund University
Global biodiversity declines are increasingly well documented and predicted to worsen under projected climate change. Since species rich communities tend to be more resilient to environmental change, each loss is expected to exacerbate the risk further. This has important implications for wider society since biodiversity is known to underpin a wide range of ecosystem functions and services. Forecasting the effects of environmental stressors on biodiversity, ecosystem function and ecosystem services, however, is notoriously difficult due to a general poor understanding of the causal relationships.
To understand better why certain species respond to a given driver and what the consequences of a given loss could mean for ecosystem function it is necessary to conduct trait-based and functional diversity approaches to infer underlying mechanisms. In this project, we will make use long-term time-series data of species abundance for various forest taxa, corresponding trait databases and alternative functional diversity metrics to fully evaluate the potential benefits and limitations of such approaches over traditional taxonomic analyses.
We will share our findings with relevant stakeholders in the Forestry Service and Environmental Protection Agency in respect to synergies between climate and habitat change and the reliability of simple biodiversity indices to evaluate management success.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Maj-Lena Linderson INES, LU
Co-applicant 1: Albert C Brangarím Biology, LU
Co-applicant 2: Tobias Rütting, Department of Earth Sciences, UGOT
Collaborators: Johannes Rousk, (Biology, LU), Meelis Mölder, (INES, LU) and Natascha Kljun (CEC, LU)
Postdoc: Nitin Chaudhary — Lund University
About the project
Input and output fluxes of carbon (C) in terrestrial ecosystems are governed by the response of soil microorganisms and vegetation to weather events and climate. Recent evidence indicates that the short-term C fluxes triggered by the alternation of drought and rainfall events can dominate the land-atmosphere C exchange. However, these C fluxes are still poorly understood, scarcely quantified and widely overlooked in the literature.
This project will resolve this omission through an integrative empirical analysis. We will combine ecosystem-level data (eddy-covariance fluxes and vegetation) and soil-level data (chamber fluxes and soil/microbial characteristics) to break ground between scales and disciplines and provide a comprehensive framework to:
- characterize the disproportional CO2 pulses induced by rain across wide climate gradients
- quantify the contribution of these short-term pulses to the annual ecosystem C budget
- elucidate the role of soil microorganisms and vegetation in shaping them, and
- assess the capacity of adaptation of C fluxes to shifts in weather patterns.
This project represents a significant advance towards resolving how C fluxes adapt to changes in the frequency and intensity of drought-rainfall events, bringing us closer to understanding and predicting the influence of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems and their C stocks.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Milda Pucetaite, Dept. of Biology, Lund University
Co-applicants: Louise C. Andresen Dept. of Earth Science UGOT, Edith C. Hammer Dept. of Biology, LU
Collaborators: Wenxin Zhang (Dept. of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, LU); Bo Elberling, (Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen), Mats Björkman, (Department of Earth Science, UGOT)
Postdoc: Rasa Platakyte — Lund University
About the project
Arctic ecosystems have been experiencing faster and more intense warming compared to anywhere else in the world, strongly affecting their structure and function. For instance, it has been shown that increasing temperatures may accelerate microbial decomposition in soil and biological soil crusts (BSCs) and enhance depletion of carbon stocks. The microbial communities are further disturbed by changes in frequency and intensity of freeze-thaw cycles (FTCs), but it is largely unknown how this will affect the related carbon fluxes to the atmosphere.
The aim of this study is to determine the effects of exacerbated intensity and frequency of FTCs on the carbon cycling in arctic BSCs with particular focus on microbial fitness, recovery and related physiological traits at the organism scale. We will combine microscale measurements using soil chips, optical microscopy observations and Raman microspectroscopy with bulk analyses of microbial respiration to identify parameters connecting single-cell level processes with macroscale responses, such as pulses of CO2 after thawing. These parameters related to microbial functional traits can be implemented in the future modifications of the CoupModel and improve its prediction capacity for ecosystem scale effects of climate change, which is essential for finding strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Edith Hammer, Biology LU
Co- applicants: Romain Carrié, CEC LU, Christine Bacon BioEnv, GU
Collaborators: Louise C. Andresen (Earth Sciences, GU), Henrik Smith (CEC, LU), Johan Ekroos, (University of Helsinki)
Postdoc: Frank Lake — Lund University
About the project
Imbalanced weather regimes endanger important soil ecosystem functions. The aim of this study is to investigate how different farm management types impact soils’ resilience to climatic disturbances, especially drought.
Drought resilience is mediated via the soil’s organic matter concentrations, and soil organic matter formation and stabilization is strongly controlled by the soil’s microbial community. We investigate soil processes as microbial growth, mineralization rate, enzymatic activities and the soils’ biodiversity. A collection of farms within Skåne, at different time stages of transition from conventional to organic, will be analyzed for changes in soil organic matter and their microbial communities with molecular and soil chip techniques. Additionally, in collaboration, soil organic matter stabilization at nanoscale via interaction to mineral surfaces with synchrotron techniques.
The results obtained in this study will be combined with earlier obtained above-ground parameters including yield and biodiversity at the same set of farms. A deeper understanding of SOM formation under different farm management strategies can lead to improved soil management for drought adaptation.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: William Sidemo Holm (CEC)
Co-applicants:Heather Reese, BioEnv; (UGOT)
Collaborator: Hushållningssällskapet
Postdoc: Arrian Karbassioon — Lund University
About the project
Recent increases in the frequency and magnitude of heatwaves (periods of exceptionally hot weather) as a result of ongoing climate change, are causing severe stress to insect communities. Yet, conservation efforts to mitigate the impact of heatwaves on biodiversity and related ecosystem services are still sparse.
In this project, we will evaluate the potential of modifying microclimates with trees and shrubs as an ecosystem-based climate adaptation measure to increase the resilience of bee communities and crop pollination to heatwaves. We will use a combined approach consisting of (1) a mesocosm study to evaluate how pollination by bees is affected by microclimates under semi-controlled conditions, (2) a policy study, where we assess the feasibility and economic costs of creating microclimates with trees and shrubs as a climate adaptation measure on farmland, and (3) a field study to test how microclimates created by trees and shrubs can affect bee communities and their services in agricultural landscapes.
As a result, the proposed project will contribute to the development of climate adaptation measures that enable more climate-change resilient agriculture, society and nature, as well as policies that facilitate their implementation.
2024
About the project
With land-use change resulting in people being removed from nature in their everyday lives, there is a need to identify and quantify the potential subsequent loss of connection to nature. Nature experience and connection is well-documented to underpin general conservation interest. It is therefore vital to understand its temporal trends, to ensure future prioritization of biodiversity and ecosystem services among the public, and in policy and societal decisions.
We aim to employ a novel and interdisciplinary approach to investigate the role of nature in literature, through the past hundred years. Popular literature can be used as a thermometer of public knowledge of and attitude towards nature, something which is particularly challenging to measure over large time spans. We intend to combine a broad quantitative analysis on the prevalence of nature in popular literature using artificial intelligence, and qualitative approaches aiming to identify themes and the context in which nature is mentioned. This will provide both an overarching analysis of general trends and detailed results, which can tease apart contextual patterns and potential drivers of change. By putting the results into an ecological context, we aim to answer the question if connection between people and nature indeed is eroding.
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Anna Persson (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
Co-applicants: Johan Kjellberg Jensen (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
2024
About the project
This project aims to reduce uncertainty on what drives forest ecosystem stability and carbon uptake and has fundamental importance for Sweden’s ability to meet the EU target for natural carbon sinks. It will make use of a unique data set for primary forests in Sweden to investigate fundamental questions about ecosystem functioning, in particular how environmental changes affect ecosystems and its interplay with ecosystem properties. Through forestry, a regionally dominant land use, humans change forest structure and biodiversity, but also potentially local climate and site conditions through drainage and soil preparation. Recent research from the applicants have found that primary forests are more stable during drought, store ~3 times more carbon than managed forests do and have greened by 30% since 1984. However, it is unclear what governs potential biomass increases, drought stability and C storage in these forests. By studying primary forests we can effectively investigate how environmental change alone affects forests growth and stability, and by comparing the responses of primary forests to those of managed forests we can infer the effect of management. T
his project will focus on ecosystem stability and investigate what factors may contribute to the observed higher stability in primary forests. The findings are directly relevant for predictions of climate change and extreme event impacts. They are also fundamental for the design of sustainable forestry and for understanding the potential roles of ecosystem conservation and restoration.
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Anders Ahlström (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Co-applicants: Henrik Smith (Department of Biology, Lund University)
2024
About the project
The ecosystem functions of mycorrhizal fungi (MF) associated with carbon cost, nitrogen-fixation and -uptake are still lacking in most state-of-the-art Earth system models (ESMs). This may lead to large uncertainties in the model’s capability to simulate responses of Arctic and alpine vegetation to rapid climate change, ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycles and biogeophysical feedback to future Earth system. To incorporate processes of plant-MF-soil interactions into global biogeochemical models, detailed information about spatial patterns of MF distribution and the MF-colonized root biomass is needed.
This project aims to map the distributions of arbuscular, ecto- and ericoid MF and aboveand belowground biomass of Arctic vegetation in the Latnjajaure catchment. The map will be produced using the sentinel-2 derived vegetation map and vegetation indices (10 m), 50-m downscaled climate datasets, a plant-mycorrhizal-traits database (FungalRoot v2.0), and a machine learning approach. The results from this seeding project will be used to prepare a proposal (2024) that aims to improve our understanding of drivers for nitrogen acquisition strategies of symbioses in the circumpolar taiga-tundra ecotone; to incorporate MF into a dynamic vegetation model and simulate tundra shrubification and soil carbon turnover; and to quantify MF-mediated vegetation feedback to the regional and global climate systems.
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Wenxin Zhang (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Co-applicants:
Robert G. Björk (Department of Earth Sciences, Gothenburg University)
Hakim Abdi (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
2024
About the project
Insect numbers and diversity are in rapid decline, also within protected areas, endangering the ecosystem functions that insects provide and conflicting with societal commitment to protect biodiversity. Functional connectivity (the degree to which landscapes facilitate the movement of organisms, and the resulting fitness effect on populations) is crucial for population persistence, enabling three major evolutionary processes; 1) re-colonization following stochastic extinctions; 2) maintained genetic variation enabling populations to escape inbreeding; 3) supporting genetic variation for adaption to new conditions. However, for the majority of insect pollinator species, the scale at which populations exchange genetic material is not known.
The aim of this project is to identify which groups of pollinators experience isolation due to habitat fragmentation in different landscape types in Sweden. Specifically, we will evaluate if green infrastructure supports functional connectivity in an insect pollinator species to inform conservation policy. This will allow us to tackle BECC’s Grand Challenge to develop effective and biologically meaningful conservation strategies. The outcome of this study will provide a methodological approach and empirical insights into the power of green infrastructure elements to remedy habitat loss and fragmentation driven declines of pollinator populations.
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Anna Runemark (Department of Biology, Lund University)
Co-applicants:
Maj Rundlöf (Department of Biology, Lund University)
Isolde van Riemsdijk (Department of Biology, Lund University)
2024
About the project
A climate mitigation and adaptation strategy applicable for Sweden is rewetting of drained peatlands, which can both aid in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and create a landscape with higher biodiversity being more resilient to drought/flooding and forest fires. The main aim with this project is to improve our understanding of the impact this climate adaptation and mitigation strategy has on the activity of soil microbial communities, and in turn their influence on the land atmosphere exchange of GHG. A large-scale experiment at the Skogaryd Research Catchment provides a unique opportunity to study the impact of rewetting this peatland on (1) the activity and functional diversity in the soil microbial community; and (2) to relate this to other environmental parameters such as GHG fluxes. Analyzing soil samples will be very important for catching the impact this rewetting event has on the soil microbial community, which can be connected with existing measurements on GHG emissions. Knowledge on soil function and microbial activity is of need for ecosystem modeling, feeding into policy decisions on rewetting peatlands as climate mitigation and adaptation strategy.
Involved researchers
Main-applicant: Torbern Tagesson (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Co-applicants:
Louise C. Andresen (Department of Earth Sciences, Gothenburg University),
Patrik Vestin (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Collaborator:
Rhiannon Mondav (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
Multi-level forest policy implementation in Privately Owned Landscapes: Locating hotspots for synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services
About
The ongoing climate and environmental crises increase conflicts between biodiversity and ecosystem services in forest management. Landscape scale management can alleviate such conflicts by setting aside production forest for non-timber ecosystem services and biodiversity. However, the distribution of hotspots of synergies and trade-offs at the local scale will differentially affect forest owners. In a pilot study aimed at developing a new methodological workflow, we will quantify the trade-offs and synergies and study their spatial patterns in the landscape in line with new and upcoming (inter)national environmental policies. We will use an area-based modelling approach in the Heureka decision support system to identify where in the landscape the potential for ecosystem services and biodiversity is highest and at what cost that comes. The project will create a new link and opportunity to collaborate between researchers from political science, ecology, and physical geography from within the BECC environment as well as with external collaborators, both scientists and stakeholders. The results from and methods developed in this pilot study will provide future opportunities to translate international policy goals to the landscape level and to study patterns of ecosystem service trade-offs as well as other factors, such as resilience.
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Cecilia Akselsson (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Co-applicants:
Nils Droste (Department of Political Science, Lund University)
2024
About the project
A BECC/MERGE project.
This multidisciplinary study sets out to explore the history of human land use in Europe. Our innovative approach integrates advanced continental-scale data from two sources: pollen-based past land cover studies and ancient DNA (aDNA) for human habitation dynamics [1]. Utilizing cutting-edge mathematical methods, our goal is to generate detailed reconstructions of past land use across the continent. These high-quality, spatiotemporal reconstructions can directly contribute to studies on climate change and carbon allocation. They can support model calibration and validation and can provide a valuable historical and natural context for future biodiversity restoration and conservation efforts.
Our project aligns with several key research areas (RAs) within MERGE: RA1, which focuses on modelling; RA2, addressing past studies; and RA4, dedicated to statistics. It also corresponds with the three grand challenges identified within BECC: Climate change, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services. Both SRAs prioritize exploring past environments, and our project aims to fill knowledge gaps identified in these areas, particularly regarding the evaluation of land use and management scenarios, scenario building, and agriculture.
The project expands on the successful collaboration regarding pollen data between three of the applicants (BP, AP, JL) by adding the paleogenomics and human migration analyses (EE). This combines a history of successful collaboration with the introduction of a new cutting-edge skill to the BECC and MERGE community. The team plans to use this pilot project as a foundation to gather the necessary knowledge for larger project applications. The intention is to extend this approach to other continents such as Asia, where pollen-based reconstructions are currently in progress and where more than 2,000 ancient DNA samples are already available. In this proof-of-concept project we will 1) combine pollen and aDNA data to develop an anthropo- and biogeographical model that traces human migration and land use during the Holocene. 2) apply the resulting model to the key cultivated and synanthropic species in Europe, producing space and time continuous estimates and identifying the human groups responsible for the changes in human subsistence and plant species distribution during the entire Holocene.
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Behnaz Pirzamanbein (Department of Statistics, Lund University)
Co-applicants:
Eran Elhaik (Department of Biology, Lund University)
Anneli Poska (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Johan Lindström (Department of Mathematical statistics, Lund University)
2024
About the project
A BECC/MERGE project
The Eurasian boreal forest is the most important ecosystem carbon sink in the northern high latitudes. With climate change, the carbon sink is severely threatened by the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires. Eurasian boreal forest fires are not well represented by global vegetation models due to large uncertainties on the availability and consumption of fuels and fire‐induced tree mortality in this region, and our forecasting capabilities are hence limited. For this short project, we will focus on Swedish forests with similar fire regime and tree species as the wider Eurasian boreal region. By collating data from literature, existing projects, and prescribed burn experiments, we will provide a set of parameters for the LPJ‐GUESS fire model SIMFIRE‐ BLAZE to represent Swedish forest fires more accurately. Our findings will be summarised in a research paper assessing the upgraded model and the impacts of wildfire on the Swedish forest carbon budget. Future projects will be able to extend this work to the Eurasian boreal forest and/or build on our new network of stakeholders to assess how wildfires in Sweden affect ecosystem services and biodiversity.
Involved researchers
Main applicants:
Natascha Kljun (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
Lars Nieradzik (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Co-applicants: Julia Kelly (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
Collaborators:
Stefan Doerr (School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics, Swansea University)
Igor Drobyshev (Department of Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, SLU Alnarp),
Rafikul Islam (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University), Cristina
Santin Nuno (Biodiversity Research Institute, Spanish National Research Council)
Investigating the Role of Satellite-Derived Fire Energetics in Improving Modeling of Emissions from the Smoldering Combustion Phase of Boreal Wildfire
2024
About the project
This project aims to fill important gaps in circumpolar boreal wildfire carbon emission estimates by calibrating current fire emission models against recent field-based emissions estimates from a soon to be concluded BECC-funded PhD project (Patterns and mechanisms in post-fire recovery of major forest ecosystem services and functions). This aim will build upon data and insights gathered from the PhD work, but extend the scientific scope significantly beyond the original project. The additional workload cannot reasonably be pursued within the main body of the PhD thesis. Specifically, we seek relatively limited additional funds to provide the following major advances:
- Test the accuracy of major global fire products such as from the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED4.1s), and the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ-GUESS with its fire module SIMFIRE-BLAZE, in representing emissions from 50 separate field sampled wildfires across the extent of Swedish boreal forests in 2018.
- Utilize satellite observations based on MODIS fire radiative power (FRP) and Sentinel-2 differenced normalized burn ratio (dNBR), which are commonly used to determine vegetation combustion levels, to explain the extent of above-ground burning on providing heat to activate the smoldering combustion phase of boreal soils, which itself can provide for the majority of wildfire C emissions in ground-fire dominated fire regimes.
- Assess the ability of newly produced, 10 meter resolution forest C maps in Sweden [3] to further constrain C emissions from smoldering soils when combined with Sentinel-2 observation of burn area and vegetation combustion level via dNBR can be established to protect their vulnerable C stores.
Involved researchers
Main applicants: Louise C Andresen (Department of Earth Sciences, Gothenburg University)
Co-applicants:
Lars Nieradzik (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Johan Eckdahl (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Collaborator: Dan Metcalfe (Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University)
Start: 2024
About
The Arctic is at risk. High latitude regions receive relatively small amount of precipitation with the majority falling in winter, leaving vegetation dependent on melt water as a major moisture source. With earlier snow melt an imminent water deficit is emerging during late growing season, a so far overlooked driver of vegetation, soil dynamics and nutrient storage. This unaccounted climate feedback is threatening to irrevocably escalate carbon release from Arctic ecosystems. In this project, we will investigate lack of soil moisture as a main future driver of vegetation, soil and carbon dynamics. Arctic vegetation changes are slow, and annual variation in snow cover largely exceed manipulations. Thus, this project utilizes long-term monitoring data from several circumpolar networks, with additional gap-filling measurements, including both un-treated control plots as well as snow manipulations (snow fence and snow removal), to understand snowmelt x vegetation interactions and its consequences for carbon sink/source strength. The outcome of this project will be the first assessment of the influence of snowmelt, and late growing season soil dry-up, as a driver for Arctic vegetation and carbon storage.
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Mats Björkman (Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg)
Co-applicants: Anne Bjorkman (Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg)
Paul Miller (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University)
Start: 2024
About the project
To alleviate adverse effects of agriculture on climate and biodiversity, there is a need to design pathways towards sustainable agricultural systems. The integration of leys in cropping systems, particularly in intensively farmed arable landscapes, is an opportunity to redesign cropping systems to comply with climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation and agricultural sustainability objectives. However, there are large uncertainties related to which management strategies best provide environmental benefits while maintaining production, as well as how to incentivize such measures. We aim to i) find alternative ley management providing climate and biodiversity benefits across spatiotemporal scales, while maintaining agricultural productivity, ii) exploring policy instruments that incentivize farmers to implement alternative ley management cost-effectively. In a two-step approach, we will: i) design a field study to explore how biodiversity, carbon storage and agricultural productivity vary in leys along a gradient of management intensity, including ley duration in the crop rotation and other environmentally friendly practices, ii) use these results along with remote sensing to inform about the current uptake of alternative ley management and model its regional climate and biodiversity impacts, and explore policy instruments that would ensure cost-effective uptake to achieve environmental goals.
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Henrik Smith (Department of Biology, Lund University)
Co-applicants:
Romain Carrié (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Yann Clough (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
Co-Applicants: Maj Rundlöf (Department of Biology, Lund University) and Nikos Alexandridis (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
Other collaborators: Maria von Post (Department of Biology, Lund University), Ola Olsson (Department of Biology, Lund University), Henrik Smith (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University) , Ciara Dwyer (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University)
About the project
Conservation of species in fragmented habitats requires securing adequate local habitat size and quality, and favorable conditions at the landscape scale. These factors also help buffering negative effects of climate change (rising temperatures and extreme weather conditions) on local species populations. A major obstacle in transforming this knowledge into successful conservation is the insufficient consideration of the dynamic system of multiple interacting public and private actors which directly and indirectly change the conditions for target species persistence or extinction.Target species and actors’ land-use decisions both respond to climate change and other external drivers and pressures, which risks leading to misidentification of critical actors and leverage points, and thus ineffective conservation outcomes.
Here, we propose to apply a participatory socio-ecological systems (SES) modelling approach to assess the complex linkages between climate, land-use and conservation outcomes, replicated across landscapes. We make use of past and ongoing conservation action for rare wild bees in southern Sweden as a timely case-study, and identify critical actors and leverage points for improved conservation. Through an archetype approach, we will synthesize intermediate generalities from these landscape-scale SES, with the ambition to gain transferable insights that can inform similar endeavors internationally and help reversing biodiversity declines.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Dr. Nils Droste Department of Political Science, Lund University
Co-applicant: Prof. Natascha Kljun Centre for Environmental and Climate Research (CEC),
Co-applicant: Dr. Louise C. Andresen Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg
Collaborator: Dr. Brian Danley Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University Campus Gotland
Collaborator: Cristina Santin Nuno, Biodiversity Research Institute, Spanish National Research Council
Collaborator: Prof. Stefan Doerr School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics, Swansea University
About the project
Climate warming is predicted to further increase the frequency of extreme fire seasons. Empirical knowledge of societal perceptions of post-fire forest management and the impact of these management strategies on soiland plant regeneration and carbon budgets, is however scarce. Hence, post-fire management strategies still require scientific evaluation to support Swedish climate targets, the EU Forest Strategy 2030, and the Paris Agreement.
This project examines the aftermath of Sweden’s 2018 extreme wildfire, by linking monitoring and evaluation of forest ecosystem recovery with an analysis of societal perceptions. Using an interdisciplinary, mixed method design, we will build on an ongoing natural experiment of different post-fire management techniques and will conduct a stratified societal value survey that differentiates perceptions according to ownership and prior knowledge.
We aim to identify management strategies that are both societally acceptable and effective in terms of ecological recovery and carbon emissions versus sequestration. Furthermore, we aim to advance the understanding of the role knowledge and information can play for implementing such strategies. Based on these findings, the project shall deliver evidence-based advice for forest fire governance.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Dr. Mikael Pontarp, Department of Biology, Lund University
Co-applicants: Dr. Christine Bacon, Department of Biological & Environmental Scenes, University of Gothenburg and
Dr. Mark Brady, AgriFood Economics Centre, SLU
Collaborators: Dr. Anna Persson, Centre for Environmental and Climate Research; Dr. Magne Friberg, Department of Biology, Lund University; Dr. Øystein Opedal, Department of Biology, Lund University
About the project
Land-use-induced threats to insects in agro-ecosystems with subsequent negative consequences for pollination services are established. Mitigation, however, remains elusive due to limited understanding of the ecological and evolutionary processes that underpin insect responses to land-use. The long-term perspective is particularly called for as evidence for land-use-driven rapid insect evolution is accumulating, but its effect on pollination and implications for policy and management are unknown.
Through assembling a team of researchers with a wide variety of expertise (for example theoretical and empirical knowledge) we will model eco-evolutionary responses of insect-mediated pollination services, policy, and management, focusing on how plant-pollinator communities respond to changes in agricultural land-use. We will identify the causal and mechanistic link between landscape heterogeneity and the function and stability of insect-mediated services and connect modelling with concepts in agricultural and environmental economics to determine policy implications. Inter-disciplinary connections are difficult to study empirically, putting the proposed research at the interface between theoretical and applied agro-ecology. We will develop novel insight on ecosystem vulnerability valuable to management and policy strategies that aim at maintaining important pollination services.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Christine D. Bacon (Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg)
Co-applicant: Erik Svensson (Department of Biology, Lund University)
Collaborator: Anne Bjorkman (Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg)
About the project
Biodiversity decline and climate change are two major challenges facing society. The Arctic is a nexus of these challenges, as loss of the Arctic tundra is a global tipping point, where the Earth’s hydrological system can collapse due to its loss.
The Arctic is witnessing the highest increases in temperature on Earth, raising alarm about the loss of species that are important for biodiversity and society, such as the Sami that directly depend on their surrounding environments. Taken together, informed conservation practices are more urgent than ever in the Arctic. Here, our objective is to combine genome-wide methods and a common garden experiment to identify climate adaptation in Oxyria digyna along a latitudinal gradient.
This project aims to understand the genetic basis of adaptation in Arctic species and the role of the latitudinal variation in climate (e.g. temperature, photoperiod) in determining species response to climate change. Oxyria digyna is a diploid plant common to the Arctic tundra, for which we have developed a reference genome, allowing for fine-scale study of climate adaptation in the species. Our results can be used by stakeholders to identify which populations are conservation priorities for the preservation of the Arctic tundra and its ecosystem services.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Ola Olsson, Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Lund University
Co-applicant: Henrik G. Smith, Centre for Environment and Climate Research, Lund University
Collaborator: Alexandros Sopasakis, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Lund University
About the project
Current siloed policies for agriculture and forestry may fail to preserve organisms dependent on mosaic landscapes, but the extent of cross-habitat resource use is underexplored. We will study movement of insects and flow of pollen they carry across landscapes with both forest and farmland.
Pollinators such as bumblebees forage on pollen and nectar from flowering forbs, shrubs, and trees, and are important pollinators of both crops and wild plants. Whereas they predominantly utilize open landscapes, flowering trees in forests also provide important resources for them. Most longhorn beetles, many of which are red listed, develop in dead wood in trees as larvae, but adults depend on pollen for foraging, much of which they find outside the forest. Thus, these two insect groups link forest and farmland, in opposite directions, through their pollen foraging.
We will assess the landscape use of bumblebees from their pollen loads, by parametrizing a new model for central-place foraging. Importantly, that model uniquely includes movement resistance of habitats, which means that corridor and barrier effects of different habitat types can be assessed. Pollen will be identified and quantified using our novel and game-changing deep-learning based framework, which allows analysing sample sizes orders of magnitude larger than before.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Maj Rundlöf (Department of Biology, Lund University)
Co-applicants: Jessica Knapp (Department of Biology, Lund University) and Louise C. Andresen (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg)
Collaborator: Claes Ek (Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg)
About the project
Biodiversity conservation must be ecologically effective and socially sustainable to mitigate environmental change, now and in the future. We will address this through a lens of bee conservation in agricultural systems, where multiple drivers such as habitat loss, climate change and pesticide risk threaten bees and pollination services.
Our project will extend our ecological model to generate predictions of bees' reproductive output and pollination services in response to habitat loss and climate change. We will test these drivers in isolation and combination to improve the assessment of the combined effects of these multiple drivers on biodiversity. We will then use our ecological model to explore strategies to handle these combined effects – pollinator conservation practices, to fight the twin challenges of habitat loss and climate change in agricultural systems. Finally, we combine this information with people's intent to implement these conservation practices to identify synergies (e.g. increased bee populations and crop pollination services) or trade-offs (e.g. increased bee populations at a cost to the farmer) that may facilitate or impede future bee conservation efforts. Thus, we aim to demonstrate how a paradigm shift to an interdisciplinary approach can provide policy-ready solutions to environmental change and ultimately increase engagement in biodiversity conservation.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Emma Kritzberg (Unit of Aquatic Ecology, Biology Department, Lund University)
Co-applicants: Håkan Wallander (Unit of Molecular Ecology, Microbial Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Biology Department, Lund University)
Other involved researchers: Dimitrios Floudas (Biology Department, Lund University) and
Per Persson (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC))
Collaborators: The Swedish Forest Agency, The drinking water company Sydvatten, The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management
About the project
While soils represent the largest dynamic organic carbon (OC) pool on Earth, freshwaters are increasingly recognized as important constituents of landscape C budgets. Boreal freshwaters receive, transform, re-mineralize and store large amounts of terrestrially derived OC. Terrestrial export of OC and iron (Fe) to northern freshwaters has increased strongly in the last decades, observed as a browning of the water, with consequences for the biogeochemical fate of the OC. Recent work from our group has highlighted the important role of coniferous afforestation as an underlying driver of increasing export. This is due to the buildup of organic soil layers under coniferous forest, which sustain high OC and Fe export, but it may also be linked to the parallel practice of ditching peat soils to promote forestry.
The aim of the project is to test the effect of mycorrhizal fungi - which become more active in peatland soils after ditching - on mobilization of OC and Fe. This will be achieved by performing mesocosm experiments, where mobilization of OC and Fe into soil solution will be compared in mesocosms a) with spruce and birch seedlings inoculated with the ectomycorrhizal fungi Paxillus involutus, b) with un-inoculated seedlings, and c) without seedlings.
2022
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Johannes Rousk (Department of Biology, Lund University)
Co-applicants Lettice C. Hicks (Department of Biology, Lund University), David Wårlind (Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science)
Collaborators: Albert Brangarí (Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science)
Practitioner collaboration: Övedsklosters godsförvaltning
International collaborations: The DIRT Network
About the project
We will assess how the twin challenges of land-use and climate changes will affect microbial functioning, soil fertility and carbon (C) sequestration, by determining the microbial (i) resistance and (ii) resilience to drought. We will assess the microbial use of C, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from soil organic matter (SOM), and contribution to soil C sequestration. To accomplish this, we will assess field experiments in the land-use mosaic at Övedsklosters ägor.
Insights will be incorporated into models for a state-of-the-art mechanistic representation of C-N-P cycling. Our target is to translate land-use management into functional consequences in terms of the resilience of supporting, regulating and ultimately provisioning ecosystem services to climate change-induced drought. We will quantify how land-use conversion will impact ecosystem-level C, N and P-fluxes, and their resilience to drought. By combining land-use comparisons with the rigour of experimental assessments resolving microbial ecology responses to drought, and synthesizing these insights via conceptual models and an ecosystem model, we will reduce a central source of uncertainty regarding the biophysical drivers of the soil carbon cycle. We will also specifically address how experimental changes of vegetation and soil management in different land-uses will generate legacies for the microbial responses to drought.
Quantifying short- and long-term responses of root growth and plant nitrogen uptake to snow addition and summer warming in Arctic dry and wet tundra ecosystems
2021
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Wenxin Zhang, Dept. of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University
Co-applicant: Tobias Rütting, Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg
About the project
Root dynamics have emerged as a critical process in the Arctic tundra ecosystems, as roots constitute a major part of the total plant biomass and mediate ecosystem functions of reallocating soil resources (i.e. water, carbon, and nutrient) and influencing species competition and adaptation to climatic and environmental change. However, due to a general paucity of data, the root dynamics of Arctic ecosystems in responses to warming are less studied. How these responses drive regional and global terrestrial carbon and nitrogen cycle are still poorly understood.
Based on a long-term (2013-present) monitoring of root functional traits in the manipulative experiments for the Arctic dry and wet ecosystems in West Greenland, this project aims to quantify short- and long-term responses of root growth to snow-addition and summer warming, and how these responses affect the plant nutrient uptakes and the above- and below-ground biomass. This project will i) conduct 15N tracer experiments to inform tundra plant N patterns and ii) investigate different treatments effects on root functional traits and biomass.
The expected results can be used to improve the terrestrial ecosystem model in simulating Arctic vegetation dynamics, ecosystem carbon and nitrogen fluxes and the resulting ecosystem feedback to the climate system.
2021
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Dr. Lettice Hicks Department of Biology, Lund University,
Co-applicant: Dr. Wenxin Zhang Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University
Co-applicant: Prof. Johannes Rousk Department of Biology, Lund University
About the project
Soil microorganisms are responsible for the long-term sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems, due to their role in breaking down organic matter (OM), which regulates the soil-atmosphere carbon (C) balance and the release of plant-limiting nutrients to fuel productivity.
A core assumption of the Earth Systems Models (ESMs) used to predict responses to climate change is that C and nutrient mineralization rates are “coupled”. However, this assumption has recently been shown to be invalid, with C and nutrient mineralization becoming “decoupled” if microorganisms “mine” nutrient-rich OM to avoid resource limitation. Microbial “nutrient mining” may therefore be harnessed to increase the C sequestration capacity of soils, whilst maintaining the release of nutrients to fuel plant productivity. However, we currently lack understanding of the determinants and drivers of microbial nutrient mining, which hinders opportunities for effective land-management. In this project, we will:
- Identify how changes in the supply of resources at the ecosystem scale affect microbial nutrient mining
- Evaluate the impact of land-management practices on microbial nutrient mining
- Validate the findings from 1-2 across a fertility gradient
- Synthesize and integrate insights from 1-3 into a global ecosystem model to assess the implications of microbial nutrient mining for global fluxes of C, N and P.
2021
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Anders Ahlström, Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, LU
Co-applicants: Hans W Linderholm, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg and
Karl Ljung, Department of Geology, Lund University
About the project
This project will quantify carbon (C) storage and vegetation biomass change in primary forest and contrast that with C storage and uptake in managed forests. This is important because, despite the loud public debate, it is currently not known if natural forests are storing or sequestering more or less C than managed forests do. This lack of knowledge hinders future predictions and precludes informed policy decisions on forest management and potential C uptake credits for conservation.
The study is based on a novel map that describe the location and naturalness of 450 primary forests across Sweden. By revisiting older forest inventory plots found in these forests the proposed project will be the first study of changes in primary boreal forest C storage, as well as contribute to the most complete study based on inventory data of management impacts on boreal forest C storage globally.
Specific Questions:
- Is the tree growth and C storage of primary forests increasing over time? Why?
- What explains variations between forests (e.g. age, biodiversity, nutrient status, water storage, mortality)?
- What is the effect of forest management on C storage and uptake?
2021
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Giuliana Zanchi, INES, Lund University (currently at the Swedish Forest Agency)
Co-applicant (contact): Johanna Alkan Olsson, CEC, Lund University
About the project
The project aims to develop a knowledge basis on continuous cover forestry in Nordic forests though the collection of data and information in the forest and from forest owners and professionals. The development of this knowledge basis is the first necessary step to enable any type of future assessment of the potential implementation of continuous cover forestry in Fennoscandia and its effects on forest ecosystems and the services provided by forests. Currently, the knowledge on this forestry practice in boreal forests is very limited, strongly constraining our capability to investigate its impacts and provide recommendations useful for policy making. The project will be based on an interdisciplinary research collaboration supported by a close interaction with forest owners and professionals.
Start: 2020
Peatlands are a key element when it comes to meet several challenges outlined in the UN sustainable development goals. Despite covering less than 3% of the Earth’s land surface, peatlands store 30% of all soil carbon and are important carrier of biodiversity. But, climate and land-use changes have resulted in an alarming tree colonization affecting biodiversity, hydrology and carbon sequestration for many boreal peatlands. As for now, hardly any interdisciplinary study has investigated the cause and effects of such tree colonization and involved feedbacks. We will therefore use the latest developments in simulation techniques to explicit tree colonization modelling and linked hydrology, carbon and climate feedbacks. However, the models need to be validated before we can determine how accurate such projections are. We therefore propose a Postdoctoral project to (1) compile existing monitoring data showing links and feedbacks between climate, hydrology and tree growth in peatlands, and (2) use our data to test existing models and to provide reliable projections of peatland responses in the context of future climate scenarios. We will cooperate with stakeholders operating peatland restoration projects, allowing direct implementation of our results in restoration initiatives to maximize the benefits of the project in terms of sustainable management.
Contact
Project leader
Johannes Edvardsson - portal.research.lu.se
Quaternary Sciences
johannes [dot] edvardsson [at] geol [dot] lu [dot] se (johannes[dot]edvardsson[at]geol[dot]lu[dot]se)
Collaborating researchers
Veiko Lehsten (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science) - portal.research.lu.se
Leif Klemedtsson (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg) - gu.se
Åsa Kasimir (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg) - gu.se
Start: 2020
There is no clear scientific consensus about the effects of the herbicide glyphosate on human health and the environment. Yet, the societal debates about its regulation and economic consequences are heated. Social media (and more specifically Twitter) content constitutes a useful source of information and influence for policy makers, stakeholders and other actors when it comes to important socio-ecological issues such as the potentially harmful use of glyphosate in farming and gardening. Understanding the dynamics and (emotional) content of the discourse can raise awareness and help to take relevant actions. To map the discursive terrain over time, we will employ state of the art social media analysis algorithms that allow us to derive sentiment (like happiness and sadness), stances (like certainty and uncertainty), and latent topics from around 2.5 million tweets on glyphosate from 2006-2019 in all European languages. Thereby, the GlyphoSentiment project will contribute knowledge on how to tackle the socio-ecological challenges and improve our understanding of how science, policy, and social media discourse interact on a highly contested topic.
Contact
Project leader
Nils Droste - portal.research.lu.se
Department of Political Science
nils [dot] droste [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (nils[dot]droste[at]svet[dot]lu[dot]se)
+46 763417341
Collaborating researchers
Marion Dupoux (Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg) - gu.se
Niklas Boke Olén (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science) - portal.research.lu.se
Hakim Abdi (Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science) - portal.research.lu.se
In 2018, Sweden saw its most extreme wildfire season in modern history. Climate warming is predicted to increase the frequency of extreme fire seasons, yet knowledge on fire impacts on the Eurasian forests and their feedback on climate is scarce, particularly for early post-fire regeneration years. This creates a large uncertainty in carbon budgets, impairs climate model predictions and undermines identification of post-fire management that best supports Swedish climate targets and the Paris Agreement.
We address these gaps by examining Sweden’s largest wildfire of 2018. With BECC guest researcher and Formas funding, we capture effects of common and alternative forest-management approaches on the forest's greenhouse gas (GHG) budget since the critical first post-fire year. This BECC project will considerably extend ongoing research. We link responses across disciplines, from soil microbial ecology, biogeochemistry, micrometeorology to biodiversity, and bridge across spatial scales from microbial growth rates and gross nutrient mineralisation rates to ecosystem GHG emissions and uptake. We quantify the impact of forest management on the "microbial pump", nutrient limitation, nutrient bioavailability, and biodiversity resilience, and relate the findings to soil and ecosystem GHG exchanges to identify key ecological drivers for above- and belowground forest ecosystem recovery.
Contact
Project leader
Natascha Kljun - portal.research.lu.se
Centre for Environmental and Climate Science
natascha [dot] kljun [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se (natascha[dot]kljun[at]cec[dot]lu[dot]se)
+46 761357744
Collaborating researchers
Louise C Andresen (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg) - gu.se
Johannes Rousk (Department of Biology) - portal.research.lu.se
Johan Ekroos (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science) - portal.research.lu.se
2021
Involved researchers
Main applicant: Anneli Poska (Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, LU)
Co-applicants: Karl Ljung (Department of Geology), Göran Wallin (Biological and Environmental sciences, UGOT)
Collaborators: Simon Bell (Director of PhD/MPhil Programme in Landscape Architecture, Edinburgh College), Gustav Strandberg (SMHI); Hanna Lundmark (SLU, Umeå); Mark Brady (SLU, AgriFood Economics Centre); Giuliana Zanchi (Skogsstyrelsen)
About the project
The project will bring together a multidisciplinary (forestry, ecosystem modelling, biochemistry, (palaeo)ecology, carbon dynamics, etc.) group of researchers, and a collaborator group adding to the project’s cross-disciplinarity dimension. Combining modern palaeoecological and biochemical analysis methods with ecosystem modelling, forestry history, and economics we will determine and quantify the impact of three forest management strategies: selective cutting, transitional, and clear-cutting-based forest management. These strategies have been implemented in Sweden during the last 200 years on vegetation composition, plant biodiversity, surface water nutrient loading, and biomass and timber production.
The palaeoecological data on vegetation composition, plant diversity, trophic state of lake water, and biochemical composition of dissolved organic matter is representative of the area at most 1 km from the centre of the lake and will be collected for three historical periods: 1) before 1850 CE (representative of selective-cutting) 2) 1850 – 1950 CE (representative of a transitional period from selective- to clearcutting) 3) after 1950 CE (representative of clear-cutting). Two dynamic models, LPJ-Guess and ForSAFE, will be used to simulate the effects of forest management strategies on biomass production, timber yield, and dissolved organic carbon export at three (stand– ForSAFE, local (2x2 km) – LPJ-Guess, and regional (province) – LPJGuess) spatial scales.
2023
Participating researchers
Robert Björk, Department of Earth Sciences (UGOT) who will lead the action group, and Paul Miller INES (LU) co-lead. Alexandra Pongrácz INES
The Arctic region is warming approximately four times faster than the global average due to climate change (Rantanen et al., 2022). To be able to predict these and future effects on the Arctic ecosystems, the Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DVGM) LPJ-GUESS model has in recent years undergone large improvement for Arctic environments, including improved representations of snow (Pongrácz et al. 2021), shrubs and implementation of reindeer herbivory (Lagergren et al. 2023). However, one group of plants which is constantly ignored in vegetation modelling are the cryptogams (mosses and lichens), although they are important for many ecosystems processes, climate feedback mechanisms, and as food source for reindeers. Thus, in this action group we aim to put together experts in cryptogam ecology and vegetation modelling with stakeholders (mainly reindeer herders) to draw up a pathway to best incorporate the new cryptogram plant functional groups (PFTs) into LPJ-GUESS. On its own, this would be a significant scientific advance, but it would also allow us to address risks and questions of great significance for reindeer herders. This action group will facilitate strengthened dialogue between the BECC environment and reindeer herders.
2023
Participating researchers
Adrian Gustafson (Main applicant), Alexandra Pongracz, Stefan Olin, Joel White, Albert Brangari, Lettice Hicks.
As more and larger datasets come along, mechanistic modellers face higher requirements for the development of new processes building on not only theory but also data. Fortunately, empiricists often motivate experiments and monitoring efforts with the data being useful for modelling. Despite this obvious room for collaboration, there is still a gap between the generation of experimental and observational data and their use in models, and plenty of opportunities for collaboration beyond simple data-sharing. In a new paradigm for collaboration, modellers and empiricists would work together to iteratively build theories, models, and identify data needs (Kyker-Snowman et al., 2021). This type of collaboration has for instance been addressed as a key to reducing uncertainty in soil carbon-climate feedback while neither abundant data nor reliable models are around (Bradford et al., 2016). One such activity would be to create a range of conceptualisations for a specific ecosystem or socio-economic process which can be evaluated against available data.
In this action group, we propose to create and evaluate an approach to enhance collaboration between BECC researchers. As such, our action group would be interdisciplinary at its core, further fostering collaboration over methodological boundaries.
2023
Participating researchers
Mats P. Björkman (BECC PI), Dep. Biology and Environmental Sciences, UGOT; Jenny Klingberg (director of GGBC), Gothenburg Botanical Garden; Marie Stenseke, Dep. Economy and Society, UGOT; Amelie Lindgren, Dep. Earth Sciences, UGOT; Cecilia Akselsson (BECC PI), Dep. Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, LU
Interdisciplinary research implies understanding and merging a diversity of perspectives and methodologies used in different disciplines, and by doing so giving an added value beyond single strands of science. This is indeed challenging due to the great variation of disciplinary logic that characterizes academia. Researchers from different fields have different assumptions, jargon, and ways of thinking and talking about problems and solutions. With those disciplinary pre-assumptions it has proven difficult to establish a common language and a shared understanding of the research. This is especially true when it comes to cross collaborations between natural science and social science and humanities, that also often includes crossing the qualitative/quantitative divide. Hence, to build effective interdisciplinary research teams, ontological and epistemological differences, communication barriers, goal conflicts, needs to be made visible and resolved.
This Action Group seeks to help researchers to overcome disciplinary barriers and promote interdisciplinary applications and projects. This by developing and conducting a seminar series, including online lectures, in-person workshops aiming at awareness rising, helping to open research minds to other forms of science than their own, and providing tools for fruitfully recognizing and integrating various approaches, theories and methodologies to provide knowledge of societal relevance.
2023
Participating researchers
Richard Walters (main appl.), Henrik Smith (co appl.), Anna Maria Jönsson (co-appl.), Cecilia Akselsson, Annemarie Eckes-Shephard, Åke Lindström, Stefan Olin, Ola Olsson, Thomas Pugh, Martin Stjernman
Evaluation of biodiversity consequences of forest management under climate change requires models able to account for dynamic effects of climate and management on vegetation composition and structure and ensuing consequences for broader biodiversity across trophic levels. Integrated approaches have the potential to serve as tools to inform decision making, by linking drivers of ecosystem change to Essential Biodiversity Variables. Forestry affects aspects of vegetation important for total biodiversity, such as tree species and age composition, canopy layering, and multiple fractions of dead wood. An integrated model able to reproduce how these structures result from the interplay of forest management and climate change, and translate the outcome to broader biodiversity impacts, could inform national and EU forest policies. To our knowledge, such a model applicable at regional-national-continental scales does not exist. In the BECC environment excellent approaches have been developed and applied to dynamically account for vegetation changes and vegetation-biodiversity relationships, setting the ground to make a major advance in this field.
LPJ-GUESS is a process-based dynamic vegetation model based on mechanistic representation of soil-vegetation-climate interactions. LPJ-GUESS contains a detailed description of land management, especially regarding forestry. Of relevance here is that outputs include plant composition, in terms of functional types, and forest structure. Likewise, there exist large amounts of biodiversity data, both from systematic monitoring programs and various study-specific datasets. Such biodiversity data can be linked to habitat characteristics includ¬ing micro-climate and descriptors of forest structure, resulting in predictive statistical biodiversity models e.g. based on Joint Species Distribution models (JSDM). However, currently, important features for biodiversity used in statistical models and the scale of representa¬tion does not match the outputs of LPJ-GUESS, and biodiversity data is sometimes not accompanied by adequate forest structural data.
The aim of the action group is to enable the development of an integrated model able to produce a suite of Essential Biodiversity Values, including both ecosystem structure and biodiversity as such, by combining LPJ-GUESS ecosystem modelling and European monitoring data, with a focus on forests and their management in a changing climate.
2023
Paricipating researchers
Edith Hammer, Kristin Aleklett, Fredrik Klinghammer, Francois Maillard
The unique ecosystems of soils have vital functions for our societies. Despite this, knowledge and interest in soils are low, and society generally does not appreciate their value nor their vulnerability. We plan to convey knowledge and to create an emotional connection about soil via a film series with microscope recordings of different organisms and processes from various soil systems, and tell their stories. Using soil chips, transparent in-growth soil micromodels we can spy on the soil’s organisms and processes happening inside the soil (Mafla-Endara et al., 2021).
We will address different aspects of soil carbon storage, different soils’ biodiversities, and feedbacks to their structure formation. We’ll show soil organisms of different land use types in Sweden: organic vs conventional agriculture, forests and urban gardens; and from different ecosystems around the globe: Greenland, Rwanda, Cloud forest, drying arid lands in the middle east. Process-focused topics will include C storage, drying/rewetting, freezing/thawing, pollution including microplastics and the effects of ploughing and compaction on soils. Background music will be acquired through the film music composing soil ecologist Scott Buckley (until recently SLU Umeå, currently Australia).
The films will be readily accessible on YouTube and are meant to spark awe about the bustling world beneath our feet, to create a personal connection to soil organisms and their world, and inform about their fragility: Soilwatching - YouTube
2023
Participating researchers
Fariborz Zelli (cordinator/PI), Maj Rundlöf, (co-PI), Nils Droste co-PI), Thomas Hickmann, Åsa Knaggård, Jakob Skovgaard, Johanna Alkan Olsson, Yann Clough, Juliana Dänhardt, Henrik Smith, Emily Boyd, Torsten Krause, Lina Eklund, Alexandra Nikoleris, Mats Björkman, Claes Ek, Thomas Sterner
In 2020, LU Land carried out a horizon scanning with researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders on sustainable land use in Sweden. A key challenge identified by most invitees was the need for methods and instruments to ascertain and address goal conflicts on land use. Against this backdrop, the overall purpose of this action group (AG) is threefold:
- To establish a research platform on land-use conflicts that channels the varied expertise and resources in BECC on this issue.
- To develop a novel and interdisciplinary analytical framework to better understand and address land-use conflicts in Sweden. ‘Analytical framework’ here refers to an innovative research design based on a set of key conceptualizations, theory-guided assumptions and methodical tools.
- Land-use conflicts in Sweden are marked by an increasing polarization between actor groups, i.e. a growing difference between positive and negative emotions attached to viewpoints and values on land use issues. The polarization surrounding these and other questions also impacts the role of researchers, not only in the sense of rifts between scholars and certain stakeholder groups, but also fault lines within the scholarly community on land-use conflicts.
- Land-use conflicts in Sweden are strongly embedded in multi-level governance settings. A proper understanding of the drivers and mechanisms of these conflicts, along with possible responses to them, needs to incorporate the dynamics between international, national and local actors and processes.
- to conduct a first exploratory application of this framework to the critical case of Swedish unprotected old-growth forests. Pioneering research from Lund University has exposed an alarming degree of clearcutting, estimating that at current rates all of Sweden’s old previously uncut forests will disappear in ca. fifty years. With the help of our framework, we seek to shed light on this urgent case. We investigate the (polarized) constellations of interests over current forest conversion practices between climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation and put them in a wider multi-level governance perspective.
This project was also granted a Pufendorf Advanced Group:
De-Polarizing Land Use Conflicts in Sweden. A Multi-level Governance Perspective — Lund University
2022
Involved researchers
Coordinators: Wenxin Zhang (Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, LU), Lars Eklundh (Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, LU), Jonas Ardö (Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, LU) and Lettice Hicks (Department of Biology, LU).
About the project
Measurement and monitoring techniques have been continuously improved in recent decades, providing comprehensive datasets that aid in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying processes such as soil biogeochemistry and crop phenology and productivity, as well as the consequences of agricultural management. Most of these observations are collected based on specific purposes and contexts, reflecting ecosystem dynamics at different spatial and temporal scales. For instance, the Sentinel-2 satellite retrievals provide above-ground vegetation greenness to indicate crop phenology and productivity at a scale of 10m × 10m, while eddy covariance techniques provide continuous and high-frequency measurements of CO2 and heat fluxes at a footprint coverage of 1–25 hectares. In contrast, soil incubation experiments are usually conducted within microcosms or soil chips, with techniques such as optical microscopy resolving soil biogeochemical processes on a cm-toµm scale. These wide ranges of data present challenges in translating all the information to the same system and unifying it across different scales.
Process-based ecosystem models are capable of representing ecosystem processes across scales and flexible enough to upscale observations to the ecosystem level. In this action group (AG), we will unite scientists working on agriculture measurements, Earth observations and ecosystem modelling to discuss the challenges and feasibility of building a model framework that can integrate multi-scale measurements. This group will promote multi-disciplinary collaboration on model-data fusion aiming to improve agricultural prediction of crop yields, soil carbon turnover, and greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, we will address the following questions:
- What specific mechanisms or processes are lacking in crop models (e.g., Aquacrop, CoupModel and LPJ-GUESS) that limit their application for agriculture?
- What measurements/observations should be fused in the model as drivers in addition to climate data? What are the benefits of the model's prediction?
- Is it feasible to fuse multi-scale measurements into the same model? What approach should be taken to data fusion: data assimilation or calibration?
- How can we promote such a model-data fusion framework in agricultural applications and interact with stakeholders to address pressing issues such as the optimization of soil carbon sequestration and fertility for sustainable agriculture; yield responses to drought; negative or zero emissions of agriculture greenhouse gases; and nutrient leakage?