Research areas at IMB

Vegetation ecology

This page in Norwegian

Vegetation ecology is the study of variation in distribution of plant species and their occurrence in nature, and the causes for this variation. These causes can be natural variation in environmental variables, such as calcium content or soil humidity or climatic variation, as well as human influence on nature, such as fertilization (input of nitrogen from air pollution), agricultural land-use intensity or abandonment (of land use).

Research within this field at NHM deals with a considerable diversity of questions, in many different ecosystems. The studies cover considerable variation in space and time, and include everything from tagging of moss shoots in order to get detailed insight into how bryophytes on the forest ground respond to changing climatic conditions, to studies of how the changing climate may impact broad-scaled patterns of vegetation zonation in Norway.

Some specific research projects are described further down this page. Analysis of vegetation ecological data makes use of statistical tools and testing and development of methodology are also important research issues.

Distribution modelling

Distribution modelling implies modelling of the occurrence of species (and nature types) as functions of different environmental predictors, and production of maps of predicted geographical distribution. Distribution modelling is based on georeferenced occurrence data and maps of environmental variables for the study area.

Several methods, which can be applied to a wide range of data, have been developed for this purpose. Good collection data, with accurate precision, are crucial for the employment of these methods.

Distribution modelling can be a useful tool for a number of purposes, such as ecological, biogeographical and evolutionary basic research, conservational biology and applied nature management. In 2007 NHM prepared  a report on the status of the field of prediction modelling in Norway (in Norwegian only), pointing to potential uses of these methods in Norway.

Several ongoing research projects include spatial prediction modelling, i.e. distribution modelling with the main purpose of making as good spatial predictions as possible for localities in which a species or a nature type occurs. During Winter 2010/11 several case studies were finished, exploring relationships between properties of species and nature types, data collecting methods, methods for data analysis and explanatory variables. Our ambition is to be a leading research group in the field of distribution modelling in Norway and Scandinavia, and we also aim at becoming among competent research groups in an international perspective.

Laboratorium for Ferskvannsøkologi og Innlandsfiske (LFI)

Laboratorium for ferskvannsøkologi og innlandsfiske (LFI) er en oppdragsenhet ved Naturhistorisk Museum. Aktiviteten er 100 % finansiert gjennom oppdrag og forskning relatert til museets fagområder. Se LFIs nettsider