Eva Lieungh's disputation: Changing alpine vegetation dynamics: insight from complementary modelling and observation approaches
From Eva's fieldwork in Gudmedalen, Vestland (2019). Here, with a microclimate logger positioned inside one of the plots where she carried out a vegetation analysis. Photo by Vigdis Vandvik.
Eva Lieungh defended her PhD thesis on September 29th. The main defense was about combining observation with different modelling methods to gain important insights about ecosystems in change. The trial lecture before the defense was about a famous historical disagreement between F. E. Clements and H. A. Gleason on vegetation dynamics, and how vegetation dynamics is conceptualized in Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs).
To represent outcomes and processes at different spatial, temporal, phylogenetic and organizational scales, the use of a variety of modelling approaches in combination with observation is necessary. A key aim of the thesis is to investigate how complementary empirical and modelling approaches are useful for scientific advancement.
Eva Lieungh's thesis includes four chapters. She first presents software (Land Sites Platform) that improves the access to a dynamic global vegetation model. Second, she examines if changes in vegetation due to experimental warming can be reproduced with this dynamic global vegetation model. Third, she explores if there is a linkage between plant traits and species co-occurrence and fourth, how experimental warming affects alpine species in the presence of biotic interactions.
Eva before presenting her thesis. Photo by Siri Lie Olsen.
