Studies about metapopulations help us to understand, how organisms in forest ecosystems will disperse in a changing environment due to the intensive forestry and global climate change. Metapopulation theory predicts the local population migration and extinction events, where dispersal patterns take a key role.
One of study sites in Populus tremula dominating forest
Bryophytes and lichens, in contrast to vascular plants, have much faster life-spans, are better indicators and show diverse life history traits. Epiphytes are linked to patchy spatial structure determined by the host tree location in a forest and though are ideal model organisms for the study of dispersal patterns in metapopulation dynamics
AIM
To characterize epiphytic bryophyte and lichen metapopulation dynamics in a fragmented boreo-nemoral forest landscape
OBJECTIVES
To characterize epiphyte model species spatial structure in boreo-nemoral forests;
to characterize epiphyte model species dispersal abilities in young and old-growth forest stands using transplantation experiments;
to evaluate epiphyte model species growth in situ;
to characterize the main drivers in rare epiphyte model species long-term dispersal in boreo-nemoral forest landscape
PARTNERS
In Latvia: Joint Stock Company: “Latvia’s State Forests”
In Sweden: The Swedish Species information center, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
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