Presentation of the consortium and team complementarity
The IRN on Cold Forests is enriched by two new partners, Norway and China. Collectively, the IRN on Cold Forests brings together expertise in forest ecology, sustainable forest management, disturbance dynamics, paleoecology, carbon dynamics, and climate change. The group has considerable experience in managing large research projects and has strong leadership qualities.
The French laboratories involved (ISEM, IMBE, GEODE, Chrono-Environment) have strong expertise in the study of paleoenvironments. The team brings together the expertise of two industrial chairs via the University of Quebec network in sustainable forest management (Dr. Yves Bergeron – University of Quebec: Chair in Sustainable Forest Management, Centre for Forest Research & Forest Research Institute) and dynamics of peat ecosystems and climate change (Dr. Michelle Garneau – GEOTOP), and a Canada Tier 1 Chair in Ecology and Forest Management (Yves Bergeron – University of Quebec).
The participation of researchers from the Karelia Research Centre in Petrozavodsk, Russia, will provide our group with direct access to a wealth of expertise accumulated by Russian colleagues on the Eurasia segment of the boreal forest. Dr. Alexander Kryshen, and Dr. Dmitry Subetto are the authors of papers on the dynamics and functioning of the boreal forest in Eurasia.
Scandinavia
The Swedish project partner from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) is one of the leading research groups in the dendrochronological reconstruction of fire history. Researchers are currently working on a synthesis of dendrochronological data on fire activity in Northern Europe. The main participant, Dr. Igor Drobyshev, has organized several training courses on dendrochronology in Scandinavian countries, and in North America where he is professor at UQAT.
The Norwegian partner is one of Norway’s leading ecological research institutes (NINA). Dr. Annika Hofgaard has authored research papers on plant dynamics of boreal ecosystems and tree line in northern Scandinavia.
The Chinese partner, Dr. JianGuo Huang, is a dendrochronologist, specialist in modeling forest dynamics.