Project description

Manipulation experiments – current research
Considerable progress has been made to better understand the response of terrestrial ecosystems to the global change factors using both field manipulation experiments, observations along gradients and modelling. Many EU projects have worked on different angles of ecosystem responses often concentrating on changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, increased temperatures, changes in precipitation and manipulations in N input. For each specific driver, experimental technologies are well developed, and research often focuses on responses in ecosystem processes at various trophic levels such as species response (photosynthesis, water use, growth, microbial activity, soil fauna), community response (plant and microbial species composition and competition, reproductive success, plant phenology) and ecosystem functioning (biomass accumulation, litter decomposition, soil respiration and C exchange, CH4 and N2O exchange, N mineralisation, water use, C and N interactions and allocation, soil solution chemistry and leaching).
 
Thus, a significant number of experiments, knowledge and data are generated on climate change within the European research community, but much of this is fragmented and has been generated in individual projects with little or no coordination with other similar projects. One task of ClimMani is to gather this fragmented knowledge in a common database.

Topics and key research questions in ClimMani
ClimMani will focus on the different climatic drivers and their interactions as key topics in the work. Furthermore, ClimMani will improve the foundation for overall ecosystem modelling as a tool to better understand the complex mechanisms of responses to changes in the ecological drivers in atmospheric change. For each of these topic areas, specific key research questions are asked. These questions are detailed described in the ESF brochure on the ClimMani project which you may download here.