NordBorN has a new associated member: Trinity College Dublin (TCD) has joined the consortium! This addition comes after NordBorN member Dr Mariana García Criado joined the Discipline of Botany (within the School of Natural Sciences) at TCD as Assistant Professor in Plant Biodiversity and Conservation. In this new role, Mariana will be teaching ecology and conservation, and researching plants in the Arctic and Antarctic poles under climate change. Mariana is excited to bring more borealization research into TCD, and to contribute TCD’s long-standing expertise in plant biodiversity to NordBorN.
Last September, the Nordic Borealization Network was well represented at the joint NSO-GfÖ conference, that was celebrated in Odense, Denmark. The conference gathered around 1,000 ecologists from across Europe.
The joint conference of the Nordic Society Oikos (NSO) and the Gesellchaft für Ökologie (GfÖ) took place in Odense, Denmark, last September 13-18, 2026.
During the conference, Mariana Verdonen and Tom Vorstenbosch chaired a thematic session titled Ecological transformations at the biome edge: borealization of tundra ecosystems. The session brought together eight presentations exploring borealization as an integrative framework for understanding ecological change at the tundra–boreal interface. The contributions presented evidence from across the circumpolar North, spanning vegetation dynamics, soil processes, biodiversity and functional change, carbon balance, and the societal implications of borealization. By drawing together examples across taxa, processes, and disciplines, the session aimed at advancing a more unified understanding of borealization in terrestrial ecosystems and stimulate discussion on its ecological and societal implications.
Overview of talks in the thematic session Ecological transformations at the biome edge: borealization of tundra ecosystems.
In addition, Maaike Bader, Johanna Toivonen and Isabel C. Barrio organized a lunchtime workshop titled Treeline shifts and borealization. At the conference there was a session on treeline and treeline shifts. While this topic is strongly connected with borealization, the terminology used is remarkably different. The workshop aimed at connecting communities that are working on these closely related topics in isolation, and to allow treeline and borealization researchers attending the NSO-GfÖ conference to meet and connect. Discussions during the workshop underscored the differences, but also the many similarities between the two research communities.
Wordclouds generated by participants attending the lunchtime workshop Treeline shifts and borealization (credit: Johanna Toivonen)
NordBorN PhD student Katrín Björnsdóttir will defend her PhD thesis ‘Consequences of climate change for ecosystem functioning mediated by plant responses across the tundra‘ at the University of Gothenburg this on Friday 2 October, 10:00–13:00 CEST.
The focus of Katrin’s research has been how climate warming is reshaping tundra plant communities and the consequences of these changes for ecosystem functioning. One of the main findings reveal that changes in plant communities can influence processes such as decomposition, with potential consequences for carbon cycling across the tundra. Her main supervisor is Anne Bjorkman, with Robert Björk from The Department of Earth Sciences as co-supervisor.
The defence in Gothenburg and can also be followed online via Zoom. We wish Katrín good luck!
