Research in Climate Change and Ecosystems

The climate is changing and ecosystems will face changes in temperature, precipitation and CO2. This will impact all key processes in forest and semi-natural ecosystems.

 

Climate change poses serious challenges for the scientific communities. Our research is designed to cope with these challenges.

 

Core questions are:

 

• How will climate change affect key ecosystem processes and function. In large scale climate manipulation experiments we investigate the effect of climatic changes on ecosystem processes and functions.

• How can carbon sequestration in soil and vegetation in forest ecosystems contribute to mitigation of climate change?

• What determines the mitigating effect of ecosystems on climate change?  How do forest and nature management, drainage or nitrogen deposition control the sink or source strength (CO2 equivalents) of forest and semi-natural ecosystems? And how do these governing factors interact within the ecosystem?

• How will land use, nutrient status and soil drainage conditions affect the fluxes of the potent greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O?

Collaboration

We collaborate with scientists at national and international level within a number of projects and network including the Danish VKR Climate Centre of Excellence CLIMAITE and internationally through several EU-funded projects, e.g. INCREASE, FUNDIV-EUROPE, GHG-EUROPE.

 

Read more about:

 

• Carbon Sequestration in Forests
• Climate Manipulation Experiments
• Carbon and Nitrogen Interactions
• Plant Phenology and Climate Change
• Green House Gasses and Wet Soils
• Forest Inventory 
• Invasive Species
• Differences in distribution and importance of well-known pests