The Tundra Ecology Lab is hosted jointly at the University of Iceland and the Agricultural University of Iceland by Professors’ Ingibjörg Svala Jónsdóttir, Isabel C Barrio and Alejandro Salazar-Villegas. Our team works on ecosystem processes in tundra environments with a special emphasis on the impact of herbivores, climate and land use changes on plant communities in Iceland and elsewhere.
Latest news
- New paper on soil seed banks in Icelandic rangelands
Abdubakir Kushbokov‘s study on the effects of grazing exclusion in the Icelandic rangelands has now been published in the journal Icelandic Agricultural Sciences. - Alejandro and his students summer summary!
A new busy summer for Alejo and his team, as he co-supervised the projects of two GRÓ-LRT fellows: Ben Amoha (with the blue jacket in the picture below), who monitored CO2 and CH4 fluxes in a previously eroded site where biocrust and vegetation have been growing after the application of fertilizers by the Soil conservation service (SCSI) more than ten … Read more - Ian and Axel’s field season summer summary!
This summer, Ian and Axel recorded net ecosystem exchange measurements using a static, non-steady state chamber method. Measurements took place in plots subjected to sheep removal for 2 periods of time, short-term (7-years) and long-term (27-years). These data will provide important context regarding the legacy of sheep grazing in these ecosystems and how it impacts long term carbon dioxide uptake. - Forestry is not the only solution against climate change!
Ingibjörg Svala Jónsdóttir recently answered RUV.is, one of the Icelandic newspaper questions about forestry management in Iceland and warns about extensive planting of invasive tree species. - A new project to teach about moss diversity!
Hello! I (Bastien) recently started a new project in order to get people to better understand what mosses are, what they bring to ecosystems and how amazing they are (in total objectivity of course)! This will consist in a series of publications (more or less every two weeks) going deeper and deeper into bryophyte complexity, but also explaining my research … Read more - Welcome Bastien!
Bastien is a new PhD student coming to us from France. His project will focus on uncovering the mysterious nature of bryophyte ecology in Iceland. Welcome! - Sumjee’s first PhD paper published!
The first paper of Sumjee’s PhD has just been accepted in the Journal of Arid Environments. The paper, titled: “Rangeland degradation in Mongolia: A systematic review of the evidence” reviews literature on rangeland degradation in Mongolia, with a special focus on the grey literature. The study shows that rangeland degradation has become an increasing environmental concern in Mongolia. Degradation is … Read more - Congratulations Dr. Klarenberg!
Last Friday Ingeborg defended her PhD thesis at the University of Iceland. The title of her dissertation is: Bacterial communities of lichens and mosses and nitrogen fixation in a warming climate. Congratulations Dr Klarenberg! The opponents were Dr. James Bradley, Queen Mary University of London, and Dr. Pauline Vannier, Research scientist at Matís. They did a great job too and … Read more - TUNDRAsalad in the news!
The TUNDRAsalad project was featured in the local news in Austurfrétt (in Icelandic)! TUNDRAsalad recently received permission for building up the fences for the coordinated experiment in Vesturöræfi, in East Iceland, from the local authorities in Múlaþing. - Welcome and congratulations Ian!
The Tundra Ecology Lab welcomes its newest member, Ian Klupar, who has arrived now in Iceland all the way from Alaska to do his PhD. Ian received very good news this week about the funding of his PhD project, titled “Alternative stable states of degraded rangeland ecosystems in a warmer world” by the PhD funds of the Ministry for Environment … Read more - Towards a functional classification of mosses
Mosses are an important part of northern ecosystems but they are challenging to identify and often get lumped into a broad “moss” functional group in ecological studies. This new paper co-authored by Inga Svala, finally proposes a useful grouping of mosses into ecologically relevant and easily distinguishable bryophyte functional groups. The groupings are based on shoot morphology and colony organization … Read more - Field work for the herbivore map is ongoing
The poop counting team has been working hard on the herbivore map validation this summer, but the end is in sight with over 50 sites monitored across the Icelandic Highlands! - Successful main field season at the FENCES sites
The main field campaign at the FENCES sites took place Jul 31 to Aug 8. Very good weather and very effective field team, so we got everything done really quickly! - Tundra Ecology Lab visits the East
A couple of weeks ago some members of the Tundra Ecology Lab visited the East of Iceland. We are very grateful to our colleagues at Náttúrustofa Austurlands for a very warm welcome, especially Skarphéðinn Þórisson, Guðrún Óskarsdóttir, Hálfdán Helgi Helgason and Rán Þórarinsdóttir. During our visit we had the chance to learn more about the work at Náttúrustofa Austurlands, discuss … Read more - Starting the field season at the FENCES sites
Our first field visit of 2021 to the FENCES sites was on June 19-21. The spring is a bit late this year – everything was still brown and the dwarf birch was only shyly starting to leaf. As usual in our first annual visit we had many things to do, getting ready for the summer! The first thing was to … Read more