Climatic responses in boreal ecosystems: a spatiotemporal analysis spanning 70 years of vegetation dynamics in north-boreal alpine ecotones -CRIBE

Dep. of Plant and Environmental Sciences

Project leader: Petter Nilsen (Skogforsk)
Co-workers: Per Holm Nygaard (Skogforsk), Severin Woxholtt (Skogforsk), Ingvald Røssberg (Skogforsk), Odd Egil Stabbetorp (NINA), Annika Hofgaard (NINA), Erik Nesset (UMB), Arne Stuanes (UMB), Line Tau Strand (UMB), Jon Eivind Vollen (Forest extension Instiute), Ross F. Nelson (NASA/Goddard Space flight center)
Source of funding: The Research Council of Norway
Project period: 2005-2008

The north boreal forest and the low alpine areas cover a large proportion the Norwegian land surface. The predicted anthropogenic climate changes are supposed to have large influences in these areas due to potential immigration of tree species above the existing treeline. Steep temperature gradients influence the survival of many plant species and their internal competition.

The changes are supposed to be slow, and the efforts to quantify the changes will be large with existing survey methods. We therefore look for the use of more easy accessible methods as LiDAR airborne scanning for present and future determination of resources.

We will also use past vegetation and soil registrations for analysing the development of the vegetation and the tree stands in a selected research area (Hirkjølen). This is an outstanding study area, due to a detailed mapping of vegetation, soil properties and timberline position in 1932 – 1936. The field registrations were done in permanently marked plots positioned in a regular grid which covers an area of appr. 1400 ha and ranges from 740 to 1160 m a.s.l. The plots will be reanalysed with respect to vegetation and soil, and the information will be included in a digital terrain model along with microclimatic measurements. The old and new vegetation data will be analysed with respect to changes which can be related to climatic fluctuations. Changes in timberline position will be analysed.

These results together with other relevant information on plant species composition and competition will be used combined with RegClim region climate scenarios in order to predict the effects of future climate change in this ecotone.

We plan to provide information from the project in co-operation with professional information workers

This is a four-year project (2005-2008) and is a cooperation between the Norwegian forest research institute (Skogforsk), the Norwegian university of life sciences (UMB), the Norwegian nature research institutue (NINA) and the Norwegian Forest extension institute (Skogbrukets kursinstitutt)


Updated: 27.03.06
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