Plant ecology

Plant ecology workgroup aims its forces in studying arctic plants, their ecology and physiology. We focus on the following topics:

1. We investigate the vegetation in the central part of Svalbard and the main focus is on plant interactions, ecosystem services and a response to global changes at both species and ecosystem levels (e.g. through microclimate manipulation using OTCs).
2. We monitor effects of herbivores on vegetation.
3. Continuously we gather data to form a vegetation map of Billefjorden.  Simultaneously, we collect plant functional traits to create a database of traits of Svalbard plants. 
4. We established several long-term manipulative experiments to study succession on glacier foreland, and effects of climate on plant communities.  As a main method we use measurements of plant functional traits with a stress on ecophysiological traits.  We are open also for foreign students.
5. These topics together with functional traits of soil fauna and soil microorganisms form also a part of our ongoing project (GACR 7-20839S: Linking functional traits of three organism levels as driving mechanisms of ecosystem functionsin the Arctic)

Team members: Petr Macek, Alexandra Bernardová, Patrick Saccone, Tomáš Hájek