Elina Kaarlejärvi
(Affiliated Researcher)
Email: elina.kaarlejarvi@helsinki.fi
Research Summary
I’m interested in how biotic interactions and environmental changes impact plant communities and consequently ecosystem functioning. Currently I am studying how biodiversity responds to biotic and abiotic changes and moderates ecosystem functions. In my research I combine experimental field studies and controlled greenhouse experiments.
Project Summary
Importance of environmental changes and biodiversity FOR ecosystem functioning
My postdoc project explores how environmental changes and biodiversity impact ecosystem multifunctionality. Environmental changes can affect ecosystem functions in two ways; directly, and indirectly by affecting biodiversity. In this project I compare the strengths of direct and biodiversity-mediated effects of environmental changes on several simultaneous ecosystem functions, so called multifunctionality of ecosystems. I use diversity of functional traits as a measure of biodiversity and investigate how climate warming, herbivory and soil nutrients influence multiple ecosystem functions. As methods I use long-term field experiments in Finland and Greenland to study this in natural ecosystems and controlled mesocosm experiments to test mechanisms driving the observed patterns.
Supervisors
Eric Post, University of California Davis
Harry Olde Venterink, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
Collaborators
Sabine Güsewell at ETH Zurich
Anu Eskelinen, German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Lepzig
Johan Olofsson, Umeå University
Funding
The Swedish Research Council (to Elina Kaarlejärvi)
Photos From the Field
Elina Kaarlejärvi's Publications
Find me on Researchgate.
