Tundra research became a co-Nordic Center of Excellence
NordForsk, which funds co-Nordic research, has awarded Nordic Centre of Excellence (NCoE) status to a research team, led by Ecology Professor Lauri Oksanen. The scope of the NCoE is to study how the negative impacts of global warming on arctic and alpine nature can be minimized.
A predicted and also to some extent realized consequence of global warming is the spread of birch forests to the tundra and its semi-alpine fringes, referred to as fjell or tunturi. Expansion of willow scrublands can be expected to proceed even faster. As compared to open heaths and grasslands, such scrublands and low forests convert much higher fraction of incoming solar radiation to heat. On top of this, scrubland and woodland expansion will speed up snow melt which has huge impact on the energy balance of northern land areas. Global warming may thus become a self perpetuating vicious circle.
– On the other hand, willows and birches are sensitive to browsing. Shrub and forest encroachment can thus be fended off by reindeer and other browsing mammals. Also the native small mammals of the tundra have proven efficient in controlling woody plants, professor Oksanen says.
The vicious circle can be cut off
The impact of browsing mammals on the vegetation gives a new perspective to our possibilities to mitigate the consequences of global warming in the arctic.
– The vicious circle where warming and shrub encroachment re-enforce each other can be cut off. It is possible to preserve the open arctic-alpine nature with its biodiversity even in a warmer climate by planned use of herbivorous mammals and by directing the impacts of man-managed species to those habitats, where the impact of native small mammals is weakest. Many questions are still open and it is these that the new NCoE tries to find answers, Oksanen explains
Considerable funding
The NCoE will obtain a Nordic funding of about 2 milj €, which will enhance the arctic alpine research conducted at the University of Turku, Umeå University, University of Tromsö, Finnmark University College, Alta, The Arctic Research Unit of Finnish Meteorological Institute, Sodankylä, the Arctic Centre at University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, and NORUT-IT, Tromsö. The Nordic funding will also enhance the collaboration between researchers at these institutions, which all will bring in internal resources, and increase activities in the surroundings of Finnmark University College and around UT’s Kevo Research Station. This way, the NCoE will both contribute to tight integration between teams with a shared interest but somewhat different capacities and it will also enhance the use of research facilities in northernmost Fennoscandia.
The application process consisted of two steps. The NCoE status was awarded to three applying teams. The two other successful projects were Nordic Strategic Adaptation Research, leader Prof. Michael Goodsite, Aarhus, Denmark) and Climate Change Effects on Marine Ecosystems and Resource Economics, leader Prof. Nils Christian Stenseth, Oslo, Norway.