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Environmental drivers of arctic vegetation – statistical analysis of remotely sensed/GIS data


Subject field

Ecology

Timing

Master project 30 or 60 ECTS

Background and aim

The effects of different environmental factors – climate and landscape properties – on the structure and function of terrestrial vegetation is a major topic running through terrestrial ecology and biogeochemistry. This project aims to try a new approach to these questions for arctic tundra. Using high resolution LiDAR data across a 100 km2 region of northern Sweden you will calculate vegetation structural properties with relevant software, then you will extract for the same area relevant climatic and landscape properties from publicly available data sources. Finally, you will merge and compare these datasets to quantify climate or landscape properties which explain observed spatial variability in arctic tundra vegetation using appropriate statistical procedures.

All existing data for the project is either present, or can be easily downloaded. The project team (Prof. Daniel Metcalfe, Dr Mattias Siewert, Dr Cristian Gudasz) have experience in the processing, statistics and ecology required for the project. The work is particularly well suited to someone with strong existing experience, or strong ability and desire to learn theory of LiDAR and advanced processing/statistics with R, python and/or Matlab.

Contact

Daniel Metcalfe

Senast uppdaterad: 2025-01-20