The newly formed Research Group BioGeoScience (www) studies the ecosystem – atmosphere interactions in boreal peatlands. They are especially interested in the contemporary carbon cycle and the influence of changing climate on future gas dynamics of CO2 and CH4 and are working along a maritime – continental transect in four boreal peatland ecosystems from Finland to Western Siberia. At the microscale they use traditional closed chamber techniques, which are combined at the landscape scale with eddy covariance techniques for continuous measurements.

The group leader Martin Wilmking has worked in the area of the boreal carbon cycle for several years now. Most of his work has concentrated on boreal forests, especially in Alaska, using dendroecological techniques to calculate past and present growth trends, and General Circulation Models to estimate future carbon uptake of boreal ecosystems.