Project description

Human activity lead to increased atmospheric CO₂ concentrations that again will affect the global climate causing global warming and changes in precipitation patterns. The “Research Centre on Biological Effects of Climate Change” – CLIMAITE – is a multidisciplinary national Danish research initiative bringing together 6 research groups in order to study the biological effects of such climatic changes in terrestrial ecosystems. The aim of CLIMAITE is to develop a conceptual understanding of how climatic and environmental changes in concert will affect biological processes in terrestrial ecosystems. This will improve our understanding of interactions between external stress factors and biological processes and provide a stronger scientific background for societal and political actions to counteract negative consequences of climatic changes.

CLIMAITE will particularly focus on two issues related to biological processes and climate change, which are believed to play a key role for the biological effects of climate change:

• Multiple environmental changes are of central importance for the biological effects because the climatic changes will include simultaneous changes in at least three factors: atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, temperature and water availability. Each of these factors directly affect biological processes and there is increasing evidence that the combined effects of these changes will be very complex and include strong interactions between factors, and that the combined effects will be difficult to predict from the effect of the individual factors.
  
• Changes in temporal variation patterns including extension of the growing season, increased frequency of freeze/thaw cycles, number of frost free days, frequency of extreme weather events etc. are believed to play significant roles for the biological effects as compared to just average changes in the affecting factors.

The studies will be carried out in a new unique experimental field site in a semi natural terrestrial ecosystem where experimental manipulations with CO₂, temperature and water will be conducted. The effects of the treatments on individual species, ecosystem structure and ecosystem functioning will be investigated through targeted studies on the soil, plants, meso- and micro fauna and microorganisms. The studies will include changes in carbon and nutrient balances and circulation, stress tolerance and adaptation, species competition and composition and plant tissue chemistry and herbivory. The research will take advantage of novel research tools including field scale ecosystem manipulations, stable isotope techniques, controlled herbivory and DNA techniques.

CLIMAITE involves a consortium of 6 research groups from Risø DTU, University of Copenhagen, KU Life, and Aarhus University NERI. The consortium covers the wide range of disciplines needed for the research activities and is highly skilled within their field of expertise. Together, the consortium has strong links to national and international groups and networks of key relevance for the research within CLIMAITE.

CLIMAITE will provide a strong educational potential, and master and Ph.D. students will be involved in all research activities. The results of the research will be published in high quality scientific journals, through participation in scientific conferences and workshops and through the scientific networks. Furthermore, CLIMAITE will provide general information for the public and policy makers on biological effects of climate change through publication of articles in popular scientific journals and launching of a web page.