Feb
Incorporating arctic grazers to Earth-System models
Recent evidence demonstrates that herbivores are an important component of ecosystem carbon cycling – to the extent that their regional effects on carbon sequestration are comparable to the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions of different countries. Today, both environmental and societal changes occur at faster rate than ever, with the potential to exert unforeseen effects on herbivore populations and their grazing patterns and further ecosystems and carbon dynamics. An urgent challenge for today's scientists is thus, to foresee these changes. Yet, the site- dependency and complexity of herbivore impacts have resulted in that only a few efforts on incorporating herbivore effects to Earth-system models exist.
This two-day workshop aim to bring together researchers with the common interest in incorporating grazing patterns to Earth-System models. The overall objective of the workshop is to share knowledge among grazer researchers and model developers within and around BECC and MERGE, inform on the ongoing research, and identify current knowns and unknowns. Ultimately, the workshop aids planning future field studies to serve the needs of models and result in the development of mechanistic model with a stronger empirical foundation.
We have invited three external experts to join the workshop.
Professor Howard E. Epstein (University of Virginia) is an ecosystem ecologist, specialised on detecting vegetation dynamics in the arctic tundra of North America and Russia. Among other work, he has developed a plant community and ecosystem model ArcVeg, with efforts tp incorporate grazers to it.
Howard E. Epstein – med.virginia.edu
Associate Professor Johan Olofsson (Umeå University) is plant ecologist with vast experience on reindeer impacts on vegetation patterns, particularly in northern Fennoscandia, and will brief the workshop on current knowns on grazer impacts on Arctic vegetation patterns.
Johan Olofsson – umu.se
Professor Bruce Forbes (University of Lapland) has a background in applied ecology and geography in northern high latitudes, with special emphasis on depicting trends in reindeer populations and their consequences for local livelihoods.
Bruce Forbes – ulapland.fi
Limited amount of space and places – so please register beforehand, latest 27th of January.
After the 24th of January, you will be approached by the organizers to fill a few pre-exercises for the workshop that will not take more than half an hour to fill.
Program
Monday, 24th of February
10.00–11.00 Registration and morning coffee, served at Geocentrum II lobby
11.00–12.30 Introduction to workshop goals and brief on Arctic grazers
Plenary: Current understanding of grazer effects on vegetation across the Arctic
Johan Olofsson, Umeå university – umu.se
12.30–13.30 Lunch at LUX
13.30–15.00
Plenary: Recap of current research on incorporating arctic grazers to dynamic vegetation models
Paul Miller – portal.research.lu.se
Adrian Gustafsson – portal.research.lu.se
Plenary: Grazing in the ArcVeg model: lessons learned and how to develop from these?
Howard E. Epstein, University of Virginia – med.virginia.edu
Plenary: The megafauna library
Wolfgang Traylor, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre – www.senckenberg.de
15.00–15.30 Coffee break
15.30–17.00 Workshop part 1. The knowns of grazing-induced feedback on Artic vegatations and ecosystems.
19.00 Workshop dinner at The Herbivore
Tuesday, 25th of February
9.00–10.30 Workshop part 2: The unknowns of grazing-induced feedback on Artic vegatations and ecosystems.
10.30–11.00 Morning coffee + Semla
11.00–12.30 Presentations of existing field settings of participants
Potential of existing settings and natural experiments to identified knowledge gaps.
12.30–13.30 Lunch at LUX
13.30–15.00 Guidelines for data collection
How could the previously presented settings be used, and what should be collected for model input, validation and calibration?
15.00–15.30 Coffee break (fruit)
15.30–16.00 Workshop wrap-up
Limited amount of space and places – so please register beforehand, latest 27th of January.
Organizers:
Henni Ylänne
Adrian Gustafson
Dan Metcalfe
Robert Björk
Paul Miller
About the event
Location:
Atmosfären, second floor Geocentrum II, Sölvegatan 12, Lund
Contact:
henni [dot] ylanne [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se