Dr. Mikko Tiusanen

Research area

To improve understanding on complex, natural communities and ecosystems, and their responses to global changes, I study how these communities are shaped by environmental conditions and interactions between the species. Currently, my research focuses on the plant communities of the Alps. Specifically, I study the timing of life history events, phenology, of flowering species on alpine meadows, and how changes in species’ phenology across environmental gradients influences the interactions between them. I am interest in: 1) How environmental conditions influence species distributions, performance, and phenology? 2) How shifts in phenology modify the interactions between species? 3) Can we predict changes in communities based on their current traits and distributions?

In my work, I use massive field campaigns and novel methodology in acquiring high-definition ecological data. At the moment, I am utilizing field installed cameras to track flowering phenology on the meadows and apply computer vision algorithms in counting and identifying flowers from the images.