October 2015: IALE-D Graduate Award goes to Martin Hallinger
We are happy to announce that Dr. Martin Hallinger was awarded the IALE-D Graduate Award for an excellent dissertation in the field of Landscape Ecology at the recent IALE-D Conference that took place in Bonn from 20th-23rd of October. Martin has been part of our working group Landscape Ecology and Ecosystem Dynamics at the Institute of Botanic and Landscape Ecology at the University of Greifswald. In her laudation, Prof. Uta Steinhardt emphasized the extensive scope of Martin’s work with seven scientific publications included into his dissertation and its pioneer character by applying dendrochronological techniques, traditionally applied on trees, on shrubs. Additionally, the beautiful layout was found convincing and supporting the content. In the following, Martin was able to give an overview of his dissertation work in a presentation titled in analogy to his dissertation: „Shrubs in space and time: Alpine and Arctic Shrub Dendroecology − Factors influencing shrub growth and population dynamics“.
The dissatation was financed among others by: Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, EU 7th framework Programme CarboNorth, DAAD, The International Arctic Science Committee, Association for Tree-Ring Research, Association for Polar Early Career Scientists, Interact und ATANS.
Martin’s work can be accessed here: http://ub-ed.ub.uni-greifswald.de/opus/volltexte/2014/1771/
The conference webpage of IALE-D can be accessed here: http://www.iale.de/en/overviewannouncements.html
April 2015: Cover story of University Magazin
ICLEA, the Virtual Institute for Climate and Landscape Evolution Analysis is the cover story of the new University Magazin Campus 1456. In ICLEA, we work together with colleagues from the geography department, the GFZ Potsdam, the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg and the Polish Academy of Sciences Torun.
April 2015: new colleague
Mario Trouillier has recently started his Ph.D. program in our working group. His main topic is the adaptation potential of Picea glauca (White spruce) to climate change in Alaska. He is one of 12 new Ph.D. students within the framework of the DFG Research Training Group RESPONSE "Responses to novel and changing environments". Welcome!
July 2015: Article published in "Nature Climate Change"
Our working group and especially the lab DendroGreif took part in a circumpolar study on climate sensitivity of shrub growth across the tundra biome. Under the leadership of Dr. Isla Myers-Smith, an international team of researchers could show that shrubs are most sensitive to climate at the transition from tall to low shrub tundra, in areas with enough soil moisture and that climate sensitivity declined with distance to the range edge of each species. Our results should help to better parametrize Earth System Models to improve future projections on the impact of climate change in arctic tundra ecosystems.
university press release (in German)
Nature Climate Change article
Interview (www.klimaretter.info) (in German)
May 20th, 2015: garbage and waste collection in Eldena
Employees and students of DendroGreif collected garbage and waste along a forest road entering the nature area Eldena near Greifswald. Since the start of an intensive monitoring in the area in 2013, we observed an accumulation of garbage next to the forest road and in the forest. With this cleaning campaign we hope to stimulate all to keep the environment clean for a better and secured future!
May 2015: Award for best master thesis
On May 8th 2015 the faculty of forest sciences of the Georg-August-University Göttingen celebrated the farewell of the past years alumni. During the ceremony Mario Trouillier was awarded a price of the Bernhard-Ulrich-Foundation for the best master thesis. His results showed why population viability measures often only weakly correlate and thus he contributed a better assessment of populations and species viability. These results will also be helpful for Mario's new project: the tree-line dynamics in Alaska.
Lehrstuhl für Landschaftsökologie
April 29th, 2015: Ph.D. Colloquim
Tobias Scharnweber's topic of his Ph.D. was "Dendroecology of Beech & Oak. Past growth and future development – how climate, site conditions and strong environmental shifts influence growth performance of Fagus sylvatica (L.) and Quercus robur (L.) in northern Central-Europe". On April 29th he successfully defended his doctoral thesis. Congratulations!
January 2015: InterStudies project at the University of Greifswald promote two proposals within the study programme Landscape Ecology
Two proposals to innovate teaching within the study programme Landscape Ecology got granted by the interStudies project at the University of Greifswald. These proposals deal with the concept of "Upside down lectures" and the development of alternative examination forms for landscape ecological studies.