Plant ecology across scales
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Contingency runs life and living in ecological time and space, in the hutchinsonian hypervolume with endless dimensions. There are enough patterns, causes and effects, interactions, and implications of all above for every metabolic entity. Contingency might also run the research of ecology. You happen to pick up the topics and questions your peers have taken interest in that particular moment of time when you catch their attention. Or the department where you do research gets renamed with new emphasis on a totally different topic. Why not pursue it. A student appears with his/her own new topic, full of willingness to do research – how can you say no…
LaLaLab is a contingent collage of diversity of interests, topics, questions and people. From theoretical model simulations and global scale meta-analysis to local scale experiments. From ecosystem ecology to within-individual trait variability. From functional traits to phylogenetic diversity. From pristine nature to novel ecosystems in urban areas.
In a broad sense our research explores how abiotic and biotic stress, interactions, resource availability, and species pools interact in governing the diversity and functioning of plant communities. Plant biomass dominates terrestrial ecosystems, providing basic food and shelter in almost all ecosystems. Therefore the key to understanding the both theoretical and applicable effects of fragmentation, climate and land use change, and other anthropogenic factors on diversity and functionality of nature, is hidden in the vegetation. Plus – plants do not poop, bite and run away. It´s good to work with plants…
We value long-term and broad-scale exprimental and observational work in ecology. This means collaborations. LaLaLab is part of the Nutrient Network (we manage the northernmost NutNet site in Svalbard, sval.no) and PlantPopNet. We have a long-term heterogeneity-diversity experiment in collaboration with Wichita State University and the University of Kansas. Macroecological and functional ecology interests are shared with different work groups in University of Tartu, Sapienza university in Rome, etc.
Latest news
A new member of LaLaLab!
This post is to welcome our new member, Nicola Pavanetto! Nicola joined us at the beginning of September as a Ph.D. student, and he will be working with us for the next four years. We’re very excited about this new entry into the group! But let’s read about Nicola in his own words: “I obtained…
How to talk about theoretical biology in Estonian
Written by Lauri Laanisto In the early 1970s, there was a bunch of biology students in the University of Tartu who established a secret society called “Duk-duk”. The name means “male spirit” in Kuanua language, that is spoken in some parts of Papua New Guinea. The group had been meeting in an apartment, with all…
Two macroecological studies: Realized niche space of AM-mycorrhiza & global assessment of nitrogen-fixing plants
Written by Lauri Laanisto It has been pointed out quite often recently that the main problem with ecology, and especially with macrocology is lack of new ideas (e.g. Moles 2018 JEcol “Being John Harper” essay). The amount of data is suffocating our hard drives, but we still use it for describing the basic stuff, constructing…
Woody species adaptations to multiple abiotic stressors: where are we?
Giacomo Puglielli During my post-doc, Lauri and I have been working on different facets of woody plants ability to cope with multiple abiotic stressors (check the papers here and here, another one soon to appear). Despite advancements in the field (hopefully including ours), we soon realized that we still miss a clear understanding of the…
New paper out – TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access
A “Database of databases” Lauri Laanisto There is hardly anyone doing plant ecology and physiology who is not aware of the TRY database. No need to introduce it, really… TRY started in 2011, and now the second paper about the database is published. With pretty impressive author´s list. As I´ve heard, everyone who had added data…
New paper out – Contrasting co‐occurrence patterns of photobiont and cystobasidiomycete yeast associated with common epiphytic lichen species
Spreading contingency on intimate relationships Lauri Laanisto The world of lichens seemed a pretty clear when I was a bachelor student of biology in late 90s. Pretty and clear, to be more precise. It´s difficult to like these strange creatures. Of course, we only studied species that could be identified with the eye or a…
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