Trial Lecture
Title: Clements vs. Gleason - multiple takes on vegetation dynamics and their role in dynamic global vegetation models
Time and place: Sep. 28, 2023, 2:15 PM, Tøyen Hovedgård
Public Defence
Adjudication Committee
- Senior Lecturer, Dr. Anne Bjorkman, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg
- Project Scientist, Dr. Adrianna C. Foster, Terrestrial Sciences Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research
- Professor, Dr. Scient. Øyvind Hammer, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Research Director and Professor Hugo de Boer, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Professor Olav Skarpaas, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
- Associate Professor Siri Lie Olsen, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
- Senior Research Scientist, Dr. Hui Tang, Finnish Meteorological Institute
Summary
Plants are vital resources and biodiversity components, and an important link between humans and the Earth system. Yet, data sets and theories in vegetation ecology are generally disjunct and only cover parts of the processes occurring at different temporal and spatial scales, and phylogenetic and organisational levels. This thesis brings together four different modelling approaches, and different types of data, that capture different aspects of how ecosystems and species within communities interact and may change alongside the climate. The study area comprises four alpine grassland ecosystems in western Norway.
The thesis (1) presents new software to improve access to a demographic vegetation model, (2) identifies challenges in a model experiment replicating a field-based vegetation warming experiment using the demographic vegetation model, (3) shows that that trait differences do not explain co-occurrence at the species level, and (4) that direct positive effects of climate warming on alpine plants can be cancelled out by interactions with more competitive species. For scaling up from empirical and statistical studies in the long term, further exploration of dynamical process-based models and trait-based ecology is warranted. Complementary approaches are needed to combine data, theory, and models to get the best possible understanding of dynamical vegetation processes.
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