Ellen Dorrepaal
(Associate Professor)
Climate Impacts Research Centre
Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Email: ellen.dorrepaal@umu.se
Umeå University Webpage
ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0523-2471
Research Summary
Current projects
This postdoc project aims to investigate how climate warming affects the three sequential phases of organic carbon decomposition on a regional (arctic) to global scale, and compare the importance of direct and indirect (vegetation, microbial) mechanisms.
My research in the news!
Estimations of carbon emissions from thawing permafrost largely rely on studies using native permafrost microbes. However, this may have led to large underestimations. A new study shows that topsoil microbes can cause much larger emissions when they colonise the permafrost. Behind the study are researchers from SLU, Umeå University and INRAE.
Our researchers investigated how our soil will react to winter warming which means increased temperatures during the winter time and consequently an increased growing period for the plants.
The Earth is getting warmer, we know that. In Sweden, there are unique opportunities for researchers to examine how this fact affects the climate in Sweden and in the rest of the world. Sweden is like a peephole into the future, the water temperature rises, the glaciers are melting, the permafrost thaws.
PhD Students and Post-doctoral Researchers
I am plant ecologist with a strong focus on belowground ecology. I am studying the effects of climate change on the decomposition on a regional (arctic) to global scale.
By understanding plant activity during the cold season I hope to cast a light on how climate change and winter warming will affect the Arctic ecosystem and feedback to the global climate system.
Ellen Dorrepaal’s Publications
View publications on DiVA
Frida Keuper and Birgit Wild just co-led a team of 17 in a years-long project that aimed to put a number on the amount of carbon likely to be released from the rhizosphere priming effect, which is caused by thawing permafrost. Their paper is out now, number and all.