Arctic, boreal and alpine

One of the regional foci of our work are the boreal and arctic zones and high alpine areas. These harsh environments are of particular interest, since woody plants growing there are strongly limited, e.g. by temperature and often reach their distributional limit (e. g. treeline, shrub-line). In addition, these areas are sensitive to environmental changes which facilitates reconstruction of past ecosystem dynamics. In particular, we are working in Alaska, northern Scandinavia and north-western Russia, as well as around the North Atlantic, focusing on treeline dynamics and circumpolar shrub expansion.