| Project Detail |
How species traits impact ecosystem processes in forests
Human activities, such as clearcut harvesting, have reduced the biodiversity of forests, which play a role in supporting their functioning. This reduction has also diminished the capacity of forests to store carbon and provide essential ecosystem services. To restore the functioning of forest ecosystems, it’s necessary to explore the relationships between species traits and ecosystem processes. The MSCA-funded BEREFT project investigates how the traits of bilberry plants impact carbon and nitrogen dynamics within boreal forests. Conducted in Norway, the research uses chemical ecology and innovative experimental designs to compare clearcut forest plantations with those in near-natural forests. It will shed light on how plant characteristics influence the functioning of forest ecosystems. The focus is on the chemical traits of bilberry.
Human impacts such as clearcut harvesting have left forests bereft of the organisms that underpin their functioning. The decline of key plant species has reduced the capacity of forests to store carbon (C) and provide ecosystem services to the people of Europe. The regeneration of forest ecosystem functioning requires a deeper understanding of how the traits of its species can be linked to ecosystem processes. The BEREFT project aims to elucidate how the plant traits of bilberry, Vaccinium myrtillus, modulate the dynamics of C and nitrogen (N) within the boreal forest. The project combines advances in chemical ecology with an innovative experimental design situated in Norway pairing experimental plots in formerly clearcut forest plantations with those from near-natural forests. I will collect a comprehensive set of bilberrys chemical traits and test both in-situ and in-vitro experiments to determine the underlying mechanism linking bilberry traits to C and N dynamics. The project goes beyond the state-of-the-art in applying novel methods from chemical ecology to measure bilberrys traits and uses a creative design to link those traits to ecosystem functioning. Through the scope of traits measured and the innovation in experimental design pairing clearcut forests with near-natural forests, this project will significantly advance our knowledge of the ecology of Europes forest ecosystems. I will receive training in chemical ecology to advance my career as an expert in data generation and exchange with the host my knowledge on long-term ecological experimentation and ecosystem functioning. The project will disseminate deliverables in trait data packages, an open-source chemical ecology pipeline, and a robust measure of the effect size of bilberrys impact on C and N in the boreal forest. Knowledge of bilberrys role in the forest C cycle can be exploited by forestry managers in efforts to maximize C storage to meet the EUs goal of carbon neutrality. |
