The Department of Physical Geography & Ecosystems Analysis collaborates in GSC with the Department of Geology. A major interest in GSC is with issues relating to the development of a predictive understanding of the impacts of changes in climate and atmospheric composition on terrestrial ecosystems, the feedback mechanisms on climate that may arise from these ecosystem process and climate, land-use and biodiversity interactions.
A new Nordic Centre of Excellence on Ecosystem Carbon Exchanges and their Interactions with the Climate System (NECC) has also been established co-ordinated through the Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis. This Centre funded for the period 2003- 2007 by the joint Nordic Research Councils forms a network of 27 study sites in the Nordic region where intensive investigations on the vulnerability of ecosystem-atmosphere carbon exchanges are being carried out.
In the department the research is strongly interdisciplinary and involve collaborations within GSC but also with many institutions both within Sweden and abroad. A substantial number of EU FP4 and FP5 projects have either been co-ordinated through members of the department or have partners within the department (e.g. ETEMA, CONGAS, CARBOEUROPE, CARBOMONT, ATEAM, PRUDENCE, EPIDEMIE etc).
Ecosystem modelling is a major research element in the department in particular the responses of ecosystems and their processes to past, present and future climates has. The Ecosystems Modelling group is involved in the development of state-of-the-art vegetation dynamics and biogeography/biogeochemistry models (BIOME3, FORSKA2, STASH, LPJ, GUESS) that are used by various modelling groups world-wide. The group has strong links throughout Europe, particularly to the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena and Potsdam Institute for Climate Research (PIK) within the LPJ modelling consortium.

RESEARCH TEAM: Martin Sykes, Torben R. Christensen, Thomas Hickler, Ben Smith