Meet early-career researcher Helena Rautakoski
12 August 2025
Meet Helena Rautakoski, a doctoral researcher from the Finnish Meteorological Institute with key interest in greenhouse gas exchange, vegetation dynamics and northern ecosystems. Helena is the winner of the Early-career Poster Award, presented at the eLTER Science Conference 2025.
What did you like most about the first eLTER Science Conference?
It's always great to meet people who work on similar topics and to have the opportunity to discuss things and learn from others. I met several other young researchers that I hadn't met before. The excursion to Seitseminen National Park, and all the discussions about boreal forests were particularly interesting.
How do you explain what you do and why is it important to the general audience?
I study greenhouse gas fluxes of drained nutrient-rich peatland forests. A key question I try to answer in my work is how to mitigate peatland forest soil emissions by using alternative climate-smart management practices. Currently I study the effects of continuous cover forestry on peatland forest greenhouse gas fluxes. We have a lot of drained peatland forests in Finland and the soil emissions from nutrient-rich peatland forests are one reason for the fact that Finnish forests are not a carbon sink on the national scale at the moment. Our research provides information on the climatic impacts of management practices that could help to mitigate the soil emissions and improve forest carbon sink.
Why is eLTER important for the future of European science?
From my point of view, research infrastructures such as eLTER are important because they enable comparable datasets to be gathered from different parts of Europe and maximize their use by other scientists. High-quality data gathered from across Europe helps address challenges impacting nature and people across the continent. This is especially important as Europe faces the combined challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. Compared to other more focused research infrastructures, eLTER provides information about variable aspects of ecosystems enabling scientists to address the most complex questions related to ecosystem functioning and change.
Read more about Helena's research in the eLTER Science Conference 2025 Proceedings. And below is the winning poster:
