The climate in the high latitudes of the Earth is strongly changing. How is high-latitude vegetation responding and how will it contribute to this change? Our key research regions are the Taiga-Tundra Ecotone (TTE), specifically the Arctic treeline from the treeless tundra in the colder north, towards single-tree stands and open forest towards taiga in the warmer south, elevational treelines in mountainous terrain in the Circumboreal, and the transition from summergreen larches to evergreen needle-leafed taiga in Siberia.

Our main research questions are

• How strong are the climate-vegetation feedbacks, and what can we expect in the upcoming decades?
• What are the impacts of changes in vegetation communities on the carbon, water, and energy balance, permafrost, and ecosystem functions at local and regional scales?

Our research methods are

• Modeling: We simulate the structure and dynamics of past, present, and future forest stands using the individual-based and spatially explicit vegetation simulation model LAVESI
• Mapping of high-latitude vegetation, its bio-physical quantities and actual changes by applying vegetation surveys during expeditions and Remote sensing at all spatial scales.
• Tracing biodiversity and land cover change through time on climate-scale by applying genetics and palaeogenetics and pollen from terrestrial and aquatic archives.