Niki Leblans
(Research Engineer)

Climate Impacts Research Centre
Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences

Research Summary

I am an ecologist and biochemist with a strong interest in northern ecosystems and their responses to climate change. I have been working on geothermally warmed ecosystems in Iceland, unraveling natural long-term warming effects on the ecosystem C and N cycle and on plant physiology. Now I will be participating in the winter ecology project in Abisko. Overall, we will investigate the role of winter processes on year-round plant physiology and activity and the carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycle. We will put a special focus on responses to snow cover changes (an important factor of climate change at high latitudes). My main focus will be on plant above- and belowground activity. In addition, I will participate in the study of the response of the C and N cycle on winter climate changes, using isotope labelling techniques ( 13 C and 15N labelling respectively). Further, CO 2 and CH 4 emissions will be measured year-round to estimate the contribution of winter emissions to the annual carbon balance (and thus climate feedback) of tundra ecosystems.