Kilpisjärvi (Gilbbesjávri in Northern Sámi) Biological Station has established itself as a modern base for diverse biological and environmental research. It enables researchers to conduct practical Arctic research that would not be possible without an actual research station and the services it provides.
While the Kilpisjärvi station got its start 60 years ago through vole studies, the research conducted today on site encompasses much else too, such as carbon sinks and the effects of climate change on ecosystems and their biota. The research data collected at the station over 60 years, through what is known as long-term monitoring, provide valuable source material for contemporary researchers who wish to understand long-term change.
How does climate change affect Arctic carbon sinks?
Researcher Anna Virkkala's studies at Kilpisjärvi focus on ecosystem carbon sinks. She investigates their scope and sensitivity to climate change, as well as how the different characteristics of plants and microbes regulate sinks. Virkkala takes diverse measurements among shrubs, in meadows and on bare, rugged landscapes, as well as in palsa mires in permafrost areas.
"The topic is important, as the Arctic soils contain enormous carbon reservoirs - roughly one-third of the global soil carbon reservoir. The amount of this Arctic carbon reservoir corresponds to roughly double the amount of carbon currently present in the atmosphere. As the climate changes and the soil becomes warmer, some of these reservoirs will be released into the atmosphere, intensifying climate change. However, the magnitude of these emissions remains poorly known," says Virkkala, who hails from the Faculty of Science.
"The diverse environment of the region has provided wonderful opportunities to investigate, for example, how the humidity and vegetation of the soil affect the release and binding of carbon, which is fairly rare, as studies often focus on understanding temporal variation," Virkkala adds.
All this effort and enthusiasm led to a collaborative project - Virkkala contributed to the establishment of a new measuring station at Kilpisjärvi in August 2024, where analysers placed at a height of three metres automatically measure carbon sink sizes every second. The measuring station is a joint project of Kilpisjärvi Biological Station, the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences and the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR), benefitting researchers in both biology and environmental sciences. The staff of the biological station have an important role in visiting the measuring station every couple of weeks to ensure the functioning of the equipment and, for example, to remove snow from the instruments.
Tundra vegetation, an important carbon cycle regulator, is under multifarious pressures
Tundra vegetation hides one of the largest carbon reservoirs on Earth, and changes in the vegetation affect the release of carbon from the soil into the atmosphere. Besides the climate, tundra vegetation is largely regulated by plant eaters of varying sizes, including reindeer, hares, geese, voles and insects.
Academy Research Fellow Elina Kaarlejärvi from the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences is investigating the combined effects of global warming and herbivory on the diversity of fell vegetation and the functions of the ecosystem, such as nutrient cycling.
"I do this experimentally by manipulating both temperature and grazing pressure. This research is important because we need information on changes in vegetation in the rapidly warming Arctic region that affect both animal populations and soil microbes, which regulate carbon retention or leakage from the soil," says Kaarlejärvi.
For Kaarlejärvi, the station enables Arctic field research, which requires several weeks of working on location every year.
"Field research would be nearly impossible without a research station, as conducting it from a tent camp would make it considerably more challenging," Kaarlejärvi notes.
Past environmental change predicts the future
Researcher Jan Weckström notes that Kilpisjärvi boasts some of the cleanest air in Europe and the shores of its remote lakes remain largely undisturbed by human activity. This makes them particularly well-suited to studying environmental history.
Weckström and his group are reconstructing past environmental conditions, which is known as palaeoecological and palaeolimnological research. The group has collected surface sediment samples from more than 60 lakes in the area, as well as vertical sediment series from several lakes. These sediment archives comprise the local and regional environmental history, which can be reconstructed by analysing the physical, chemical and biological information stored in the sediment. By using the palaeoecological approachdating the sediment series and investigating organismal residues the researchers have, among other things, reconstructed the climate and vegetation history of the region as well as the evolutionary history of some aquatic ecosystems.
"Past environmental changes can be used as analogues to predict future effects of climate change. For instance, we know that roughly 8,000-5,000 years ago the region was one to two degrees warmer than today. We have also discovered that the pine forest was further north and higher than it is today. Among other things, we can estimate what the landscape may look like in terms of vegetation in the future, or how the waterways in the region will develop as a result of estimated global warming on the basis of historical data on similar environmental conditions,"Weckström says.
"The research station has played a very important role in our research. It has provided an excellent base and additional services for long days of fieldwork. Without it, these studies would have been extremely difficult to carry out," Weckström notes.
Fish and food webs not spared from the effects of climate change
Professor Kimmo Kahilainen has been visiting Kilpisjärvi and its surrounding areas as well as the wider Tornio-Muonionjoki watercourse for research on fish and food webs since autumn 2002.
"Together with my research group, we have combined many traditional and modern methods to understand changes in the fish communities and the food webs both temporally and spatially. The biological station provides an excellent base for year-round research and teaching, particularly Lake Kilpisjärvi," Kahilainen says.
The food web research conducted by Kahilainen's group has been used in the development of isotope modelling. Year-round studies have made it possible to understand how winter affects the composition of the fish stock, fish metabolism and ecology. On the basis of regional studies, it is possible to assess how climate change and the amount of nutrients, such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, will affect fish populations and food webs in the future.
"Kilpisjärvi Biological Station has had a significant impact on the development of my research group's key themes, such as the combined effects of climate change and nutrients in lake food webs, as well as on work carried out throughout the year. The research conducted at the station has enabled the development of food web modelling and winter ecology research in general," says Kahilainen.
Future benefits of the station for top-level research
While Kilpisjärvi Biological Station constitutes a fundamental support for Arctic research, in the future investments will be needed to safeguard the stations' operating conditions.
"The facilities and research assistance in their various forms are probably the most important things from the researcher perspective. In recent years, the station has excelled in this, for example, by hiring a research coordinator and technician," says Kahilainen.
"Our long-term goal would be to have a permanent research director at Kilpisjärvi. They would be able to assemble the research conducted in the region into a multidisciplinary whole and accordingly plan future development needs for the station. This would make it possible to build the station into a global leader comprehensively understanding Arctic change," says Jouni Heiskanen, Director of the biological research stations at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences.
"Collaboration with UiT the Arctic University of Norway is considered important now and for the future. Together, we can cover Arctic ecosystems all the way to the Arctic Ocean. This is important for us to be able to comprehensively understand the rapidly changing north. Strengthening cooperation is one practical measure in the implementation of the University of Helsinki Arctic Programme. Negotiations on the topic are underway between the institutions' leadership," says Professor of Environmental Change Atte Korhola, Vice-Dean for public engagement at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences.
Ambitious goals for the future ensure that the station will remain a hub for top-level research well into the coming decades.
