Research

We study ecosystems from the top down and from the bottom up to understand how the world stays green.

Key Research Themes

Long-term ecology

Long-term nature observation series are indispensable records of how individual populations and species are responding to environmental change. In the we are systematically collecting long-term ecological data for an unprecedented syntheses of how communities of organisms are responding to change.

Biodiversity in a changing world

We are studying how natural communities are responding to global change and how interactions among species across trophic levels are changing as well.

Intraspecific variation in host-parasite interactions

Understanding how diversity is maintained in host and parasite populations is one of the core challenges in disease biology. Using long-term population dynamic data combined with genomics and experimentation, we address this question in a natural plant-pathogen interaction. This work brings us one step closer to answering questions of how risks of virulence and pathogen occurrence evolve – important questions from both basic and applied points of view.

Pathogen communities

Across biological systems it is becoming increasingly clear that host populations and even single host individuals are typically exploited by diverse pathogen communities. In our work we aim to understand the spatio-temporal determinants of this diversity, and what the eco-evolutionary implications are for both hosts and pathogens.

Biological diversity and sustainable food production

Humans have intensified and mechanized agricultural processes in an effort to boost efficiency, productivity and profits. As a result, global food systems are increasingly generating severe social, environmental, economic and climate costs. We are investigating how mechanisms that promote stability in natural ecosystems could be utilized to develop sustainable and climate-smart food production systems.

Global plant demography

As part of we are driving a coordinated global effort combining data and theory to understand abiotic and biotic drivers of population persistence and distribution in a changing world.

Study Systems

Finnish Forests

Forests are a major biotope in Finland and have thus huge ecological value. We are interested in how disturbance, in this case forest clear cutting, affects to microbial interactions and diversity in understory plant community of boreal forests. As part of the we participate study on biodiversity ecosystem functions in sites established by .

Meadows in Åland Island

The long-term data collection from has included disease observations since 2001. With yearly surveys we have collected remarkable dataset of interaction between the host species ribwort plantain and fungal disease powdery mildew in metapopulation network. Multiple studies in Åland are giving insight also to other plant diseases, viral communities, mycorrhizal interactions, and host population history in fragmented landscape.

Swiss Alpine meadows

We have done several years research in study sites in Swiss mountain Calanda. Sites locate in meadows on four different elevations below treeline. Methods have included vegetation surveys, microbial sampling, transplant experiment and pollinator surveys. We have gained knowledge about plant and microbial communities, disease and herbivory load and pollinator biodiversity on different elevations, and effects of these to each other.

Agricultural Fields

Collaboration with Baltic Sea Action Group in projects has taken our researchers to farmlands. Carbon Action aims to develope and spread agricultural practicies that bind atmospheric carbon to soil and benefit both biodiversity and farmers. We are interested in how regenerative agriculture affects to above and belowground microbes and invertebreates, disease and herbivory load, and local biodiversity. The projects we have been part are , and .