Purpose:
To enhance soil biodiversity in European agroecosystems to promote their stability and resilience by external inputs reduction and crop performance increase.
Impact:
The project will develop new applications and practices in agroecosystems. As a result, European farmers will get guidance to ensure soil health and biodiversity in different pedoclimatic regions in Europe.
Purpose:
UUTU project promotes sustainable and diversified use of forests by increasing the multiple use of forest ecosystem services; providing information on the production of wood; developing Forest Indicator, a web-based tool showing the changes in ecosystem services as a result of forest use; developing forest planning; and developing models that calculate the profitability and trade-offs of the production of natural products.
Impact:
The project supports forest owners’ decision making and the implementation of regional forest programs as well as sustainable bio-economy and regional development. It benefits both regional and private forest owners and the entire forest ecosystem.
Purpose:
The project (2013–2018) provided information on the environmental and economic impacts of the re-use of low-productive drained peatlands and, thus, finding holistically cost-effective alternatives for peatland use.
Impact:
The project created a science-based approach for decision makers to illustrate the impacts of alternative peatland re-use on biodiversity, waterways and carbon sequestration enabling holistically sustainable land use decisions.
Luke’s biodiversity experts contribute to the work of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) by taking part in elaboration of global IPBES assessments and in national and international science-policy events.
Biodiversity loss is one of the biggest environmental, social and economic threats of our age. Luke’s research focuses mainly on forest biodiversity and factors influencing the distribution of endangered species in forests. Moreover, our work contributes to maintaining the diversity in mires and peatlands, agricultural fields and aquatic environments.
Luke’s long-term studies on silvicultural methods in commercial forests form a solid base for consersation efforts. Research suggests that methods which emulate natural disturbances and natural development of forests provide more habitats for species in forests. Management of uneven-aged forest stands is only one example of possible solutions. This type of silviculture in not only beneficial to species living in the forest or people’s recreation, on suitable sites it can also provide as much revenue as what would be achieved with even-aged forest management.
Forest and peatland restoration
Forest restoration is an active conservation measure that safeguards and promotes biodiversity. Luke’s experiments compare the effectiveness of various forest restoration measures on the function and structure of forest ecosystems. The research provides information on the changes in stand structure, decomposition processes of burned and decaying wood, and the influence of these factors on the species distribution. The information can be utilized both in protected areas and in commercial forests.
Luke’s research on peatland restoration covers field experiments which investigate the development of species diversity, greenhouse gas emissions and hydrology after rewetting measures. Results are utilized in state-of-the-art modelling studies which predict the future impacts of restoration on peatland ecosystems and optimize restoration to sites where they are best suited in terms of biodiversity, greenhouse gas balances and nutrient loading. A large-scale EU-funded project LIFEPeatLandUse produced information on various alternative uses for the low-productive drained peatlands, and their environmental and economic impacts.
Biodiversity needs to be part of land use schemes
Luke develops methods to merge biodiversity values into multiple land use scheme. Information on biodiversity values is merged with people’s activities and land use preferences, and with regional land use planning schemes, to locate areas where development can be carried out in a sustainable manner. Tools, such as Yoda multicriteria tool and Forest Indicator, are developed to help decision making and to visualize trade-offs of between biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Luke also has a statutory responsibility to maintain genetic resources and to conduct research relating to genetic resources used in primary production. Material in conservation programmes is valuable as such, but it also contributes to maintaining biodiversity and serves breeding and genetic research.
