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The Arctic soil holds enormous amounts of carbon, whose release due to global warming can accelerate climate change, which is why understanding the functioning of carbon sinks is particularly important. Kilpisjärvi’s diverse environment provides a unique opportunity to investigate how soil moisture and vegetation affect the carbon cycle.
In August 2024, Virkkala was involved in establishing the new
Arctic lakes are valuable to local communities, who rely on them for transportation, food, and water, particularly in winter. Expanding scientific knowledge requires modern approaches that account for the typically long winter season in the region, entire food systems, and issues related to human nutrition and mercury levels, which are closely connected to the lakes and the people who use them.
The research project responds to concerns raised by indigenous communities, including changes in ice and snow cover, fish die-offs caused by oxygen depletion, and changes in the taste of fish. We are expanding traditionally summer-focused Arctic research into year-round studies on ten key lakes in the polar region. In Finland, research is conducted at Kilpisjärvi and Muddusjärvi.
This research project investigates how geodiversity – the variety of earth materials, forms, waterbodies and other geological elements – affects biodiversity through climate change. Regions with high geodiversity are often also rich in species. This is why surveying, understanding and protecting geodiversity are central to promoting sustainable development.
The project will increase knowledge of the relationship between geodiversity and biodiversity by investigating variation in temperature, nutrients, water resources and other local factors that shape biodiversity. The project also investigates the extent to which the link between geodiversity and biodiversity applies to different ecosystems – Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine regions that are particularly sensitive to the effects of climate change.
Headed by Miska Luoto, the BioGeoClimate Modelling Lab investigates changes in Arctic environments and ecosystems and the factors underlying them. The Kilpisjärvi region offers a unique environment where the effects of climate change are clearly visible.
The group’s research topics include the following:
The research relies on new modelling techniques, longitudinal climate datasets and extensive measuring networks that make it possible to predict changes in the Arctic environment. Kilpisjärvi Biological Station provides an optimal setting for these efforts and serves as an important base for monitoring the Arctic environment.
Tundra vegetation hides one of the largest carbon reservoirs in the world, significantly contributing to the release of carbon from the soil into the atmosphere. Besides climate change, this plant life is affected by a range of herbivores, including reindeer, voles, lemmings, hares and insects.
Academy Research Fellow Elina Kaarlejärvi investigates at Kilpisjärvi how global warming and herbivores together alter the vegetation and ecosystem functions of the tundra. Her research topics include the effects of reindeer grazing and the temperature rise on the nutrient cycle and carbon fixation in the soil.
Kaarlejärvi’s research group applies research methods such as field experiments where both temperature and grazing pressure are manipulated. The research is carried out in cooperation with Professor Anu Eskelinen of the University of Oulu and researchers of the Tundra Exclosure Network (TExNet).
This fieldwork would be challenging without a research station that provides Kaarlejärvi and her team with the opportunity for long-term Arctic research.
A research group headed by researcher Jan Weckström reconstructs historical environmental conditions by analysing sediment deposits in lakes in the Kilpisjärvi region. This palaeoecological and limnological project increases knowledge of changes in the climate and flora over time – and their relevance to future environmental change.
Weckström’s group has collected samples from more than 60 lakes and analysed sediment series, enabling the dating of historical climate and floral change. For example, roughly 8,000–5,000 years ago the area was 1–2 degrees warmer than today, and the pine forest extended further north and ascended higher. These data can be used to predict how global warming will affect the landscape and waterbodies of the region in the future.
Fish monitoring produces high-quality basic research knowledge on the composition of Lake Kilpisjärvi and changes in its fish population, such as species-specific abundance, changes in size distribution and, in particular, the annual cohorts of the European whitefish. The project will provide further information on changes in the fish populations of the Arctic lake, which can be used in the assessment of changes in other waterbodies and in the conservation of threatened species. Long-term monitoring provides information on, for example, changes in the abundance ratios of the fish population and the spread of the ruffe, the perch, the roach and other new species into the area, and their effects on the original Lake Kilpisjärvi fish population, which includes the European whitefish and Arctic char. Long-term monitoring also makes it possible to observe and assess the effects of climate change on the fish community.
The LifePlan project surveyed global biodiversity with the help of state-of-the-art scientific tools. The researchers also strove to understand, among other things, the effects of climate change and changes in land use on biodiversity.
Insect samples were collected using a tent-like Malaise trasp and fungal spores with a cyclone spore collector, with DNA assays carried out on the samples. Mammals and birds were surveyed using trail cameras and recording devices, while AI solutions were used to identify the species. Soil samples were taken four times per growing season. The same experimental design was used in roughly 150 locations globally.