Juan Ignacio Ramirez
(Affiliated Researcher)

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies

Research Summary

The overarching aim of my research is to understand herbivore-plant interaction from both the plant and animal perspectives and across different biomes. The bulk of my research includes how ungulates interact in temperate forests and how these relationships shift vegetation composition, structure, and succession. If ungulate interactions with vegetation are strong and consistent in time, this may trigger cascading effects to other trophic levels and ecosystem processes. Naturally, these interactions also take place in different biomes and thus, I’ve been involved in research projects in tropical and boreal systems.

Currently I am harnessing my ungulate-temperate forest research to quantify the contemporary effects of climate change and large herbivores (i.e., reindeer & moose) on Arctic vegetation and overall biodiversity. This work is part of a larger project: Future ArcTic Ecosystems (FATE). To achieve this, I combine field-tested methods such as ungulate exclosures, vegetation plots, scat transects, camera traps and decomposition experiments with readily available information like biodiversity indexes and spatial data.

Website

http://www.fate-biodivscen.org/

Supervisor

Johan Olofsson, UMU

Funding

Future ArcTic Ecosystems (FATE) https://www.fate-biodivscen.org/

Current Projects

Our Projects

Effect of herbivory and climate on tundra vegetation

We will study the interactive effect of herbivores and climate on plant community composition and plant traits using two long term field experiments in the Fennoscandian tundra. We aim to improve the interpretation of the driving forces behind changes in NDVI observed in satellite images, and clarify the potential of herbivores to influence the climate via changes in the albedo of the tundra.