The first Finnish Eco­sys­tem Science Meeting: ICOS, eL­TER and An­aEE net­works was a suc­cess

150 people, 40 presentations, 6 countries, 4 sessions, 3 keynotes and 3 workshops: this is how the first Finnish Eco­sys­tem Science Meeting (FESM), that took place at the beginning of May,could be described in numbers.

This was the first combined meeting of these environmental research infrastructures in Finland and it was a great success. This kind of shared activity among the RIs shows how fruitful the interactions can be and demonstrates the value of integrated collaboration.

The meeting included keynote talks, thematic sessions with participants’ presentations, interactive workshops, and lots of discussion. The keynotes were given by Prof. Anna-Liisa Laine from University of Zurich, Prof. Chris Evans from UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and DG Werner Kutsch from ICOS RI Head Office. The presentations covered both the changes we observe in the environment and ecosystems’ responses to various pressures as well as what can be done to find solutions.

There were 40 presentations during 4 four thematic sessions:
- “Biodiversity links to ecosystem functioning”;
- “Scaling - how to use measurements for modelling at different scales”;
- “Lateral element transport between ecosystems boundaries and fluxes across boundaries”;
- “Natural climate solutions - ways forward to enhance land carbon sinks and reduce adverse climate impacts of land use”.

The presentation abstracts are available through the meeting webpage. The parallel workshops were organized in three themes: Dynamic data and data linking; Stable Isotope Measurements; Integrated modelling.

You can read more here.