The Finnish Ecosystem Science Meeting: ICOS, eLTER and AnaEE networks was organized 4–6 May 2021 via Zoom. This was the first combined meeting of these environmental research infrastructures in Finland and it was a great success. This kind of shared activity among the RIs shows how fruitful the interactions can be and demonstrates the value integrated collaboration.
The meeting included keynote talks, thematic sessions with participants’ presentations, interactive workshops, and lots of discussion. The keynotes were given by Prof. Anna-Liisa Laine from University of Zurich, Prof. Chris Evans from UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and DG Werner Kutsch from ICOS RI Head Office, and they touched potential human influences on different aspects on ecosystems. The presentations covered both the changes we observe in the environment and ecosystems’ responses to various pressures as well as what can be done to find solutions.
The four thematic sessions were titled Biodiversity links to ecosystem functioning, Scaling - how to use measurements for modelling at different scales, Lateral element transport between ecosystems boundaries and fluxes across boundaries and Natural climate solutions - ways forward to enhance land carbon sink and reduce adverse climate impacts of land use. Altogether 40 presentations gave insights on research ongoing in Finland and opened doors for future collaboration when researchers learned about others working on the same field. The presentation abstracts are available through the meeting webpage (LINK). The three parallel workshops were organized on themes Dynamic data and data linking, Stable Isotope Measurements and Integrated modelling.
The meeting had up to 150 registered participants from different institutes and research infrastructures across Finland, as well as some participants from Switzerland, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands and USA. The meeting was very successful with lively discussions during the thematic sessions and workshops. The next Finnish Ecosystem Science Meeting will be organized in 2023, hopefully on site!
Read more about the meeting’s scope on the website:
/en/conferences/finnish-ecosystem-science-meeting