Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory will collaborate with Swedish scientists to determine how boreal-tundra ecosystems in northern Sweden respond to climate change. A manipulative field experiment will be conducted to examine the effects of a warming and doubling of the carbon dioxide on the health of a dwarf shrub ecosystem. The ecological response to the increased "greenhouse" conditions will be incorporated into a model that will allow assessment of the changes from the molecular to whole-ecosystem scale. Feedbacks from the ecosystem and soil to the atmosphere under the warmed, carbon dioxide enriched condition will also be examined. This study will facilitate predictions of the response of a sensitive Arctic ecosystem to climate forcing under postulated increased "greenhouse" conditions that might occur if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are doubled at the same time as global temperatures are warmed.
