How does grassland vegetation recover from years of nitrogen additions?

Photo: Amy Eycott

Depositions of ammonia and nitrogen oxides have heavily increased since the mid 1900’s, and nitrogen additions in grasslands have shown to affect grass biomass, soil pH and nutrient availability. But how do these grasslands recover if nitrogen additions stop, and for how long does the added nitrogen stay in the systems?

Project description

The aim of this project is to investigate how functional plant groups in a semi-natural grassland recovers from years of nitrogen treatments (simulating increased depositions of ammonia and nitrogen oxides). This is investigated by mapping changes in species composition and plant functional group biomass over several years.

Tasks

Photo: Amy Eycott

The student will mainly help with lab work, which includes sorting biomass samples into functional groups (graminoids, herbs and moss), and drying and weighing the different groups. There might also be needs for help with data entering after the lab work is finished.

The project involves: Labwork

Starting date/period: March 15th 2021 – December 31st 2021.

Experience: By participating in this project, you will learn how to easily tell the difference between plant functional groups, and get familiar with some standard lab procedures within plant ecology.

Involvement: Very flexible, but preferably minimum 10h/week.

 

Interested by this project? Need more info? Contact Silje Östman (silje.ostman@uib.no)

Project number: 012

 

 

 

 

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