Long-term changes in Nature
Changes in forest understory
In collaboration with researchers from Natural Resource Institute Finland (LUKE), we investigate long-term changes in forest understory communities across whole country. This research is possible thanks to a long history of National Forest Inventories in Finland. We have shown that plant communities experience the greatest temporal turnover right after forest regeneration in fertile habitats.
Currently, we study drivers of biodiversity changes: how seedbank, dispersal and landscape heterogeneity influence community assembly after forest regeneration.Kaarlejärvi et al. 2021: Temporal biodiversity change following disturbance varies along an environmental gradient. Global Ecology and Biogeography
long-term changes in nature
Cross-taxa comparison
By combining long-term datasets across taxa, we can seek general patterns of biodiversity changes in nature. In a study, led by the Research Centre for Ecological Change (REC), combining observations on mammals, plants, birds, butterflies and freshwater phytoplankton, we showed that species occurrence has changed most in northern Finland over the past decades.
Antão, Weigel et al. 2022: Climate change reshuffles northern species within their niches. Nature Climate Change
