Comparing climate change impacts on High North vs. Alpine ecosystems through research and training in trait-based approaches (TraitTrain)
High North and Alpine regions support important ecosystems that play key roles in the livelihoods and well-being of >25% of the world's population. These regions are now strongly impacted by climate change, raising concern linked both to nature conservation, resource management, and ecosystem service provisioning. High North and Alpine ecosystems share many characteristics, including treeless landscapes, slow nutrient cycling and species' traits, but they also differ in important ways, e.g. in annual climate variability, climatic and evolutionary history, and biodiversity.
TraitTrain will exploit opportunities offered by already-existing research infrastructure and collaborative research in the High North (Svalbard), in mid-latitude alpine areas (Norway, USA), and in the largest low-latitude alpine areas of the world 'third pole' (the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau) to develop comparative research on climate change impacts on High north and Alpine biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services.
Towards this end, TraitTrain will combine recent development in trait-based ecology, ecological theory and ecosystems ecology with state-of-the-art experimental and observational approaches to assess climate change impacts. We will combine existing and new climate change experiments and observational data, offer training in state-of-the-art empirical and analytical techniques, and exchange students and staff for short-term scientific visits, field work, workshops and research stays.
The main partners, University of Bergen (Norway), the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute for Mountain Hazards and Environments (China), the University Centre at Svalbard, and the University of Arizona each bring unique strengths, competence, and research infrastructure to the project. Main outcomes will be collaborative research, student training, and conservation- and management-relevant data and publications. A prior history of successful collaboration secures staff, student, and infrastructure resources to the project, ensures a high probablilty of successful project completion, and maximises probability for successful outcomes.
Project facts
Name
Comparing climate change impacts on High North vs. Alpine ecosystems through research and training in trait-based approaches (TraitTrain)
Status
CONCLUDED
Duration
01.01.16 - 31.12.18
Total budget
1.500.000 NOK
