The prime goal of this project is to explore variation in the distribution of vascular plants at different scales, aiming at a better understanding of the distributional patterns as such as well as the reasons behind these patterns, i.e. which environmental variables and other processes are structuring distributional variation.
We approach this aim by performing research along two parallel lines: (1) The multi-scale study. Assessment of the scales at which selected vascular plant species and environmental predictors vary.
This line of research will be based upon a set of data collected ‘across spatial scales’ in 2011 and 2012 with basis in 1-km2 areas spread over Norway, mapped in 2010 by use of the “Nature types in Norway” (NiN) (in Norwegian only). Presence of the selected vascular plant was recorded in a grid of nested scale domains, with a 1:16 linear relationship between grain and extent at each nesting level. (2) Selected areas studies.
Studies of (more or less) the full vascular plant species composition of two restricted areas within Norway, by use of two existing high-quality data sets that cover the medium coarse local (ARKO-project data) and the coarse local/fine regional scales (Lista, southern Norway) will be used. Data made available through GBIF will be used in research along both lines, addressing variation at spatial scales up to the global.
Supervisors: Rune Halvorsen og Vegar Bakkestuen (both NHM)