Marcus Wallin, researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), has been appointed as the new director of the national research infrastructure SITES (Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science). Marcus, who has extensive experience in ecosystem science research, looks forward to leading the work to strengthen SITES' role in contributing to future environmental and climate transition.
Marcus has worked with various types of ecosystem-related research for over 20 years. Over the years, he has often benefitted from the research stations and data generated within SITES.
- SITES is a unique research infrastructure that creates great opportunities for field- based ecosystem research in Sweden. The various research stations that are part of SITES offer physical access to well-established research environments, knowledgeable staff, and provide open data via our data portal, says Marcus.
SITES's operations include nine different research stations representing different ecosystems and research focus. Data collection is partly done via thematic programs where standardised measurements enable fully comparable data. Collectively, this has made SITES a model for several other European countries.
The research stations that are part of SITES are established and have been conducting field-based data collection, in some cases for over 100 years. SITES has been a national research infrastructure since 2013 and large parts of the operations are well established.
- My role as director is about coordinating SITES-related work at the various stations and within our secretariat. An important part is also to create conditions for the operation to develop to meet future societal challenges, says Marcus.
Through its activities, SITES can contribute to the conditions for answering various ecosystem-related questions.
- We work within SITES to produce basic data and assist research projects that, for example, investigate how different ecosystems or ecosystem functions respond to a changing climate or altered land-use. There is a desire in Sweden to increase our use of certain ecosystem functions to solve various societal challenges. At the same time, we are faced with demands to restore parts of our managed landscape to more “pristine” conditions. Fundamental to being able to make wise and long-term decisions on how this should be done is fact-based knowledge. The work within SITES and the data we produce are key to this, says Marcus.
To find solutions to future challenges, cooperation is important.
- This is one of the areas I see that we in SITES can develop in the future. While we protect the unique work we do within SITES , we will need to work closer to other national and international infrastructures to find synergies, says Marcus.
Finding synergies between different research infrastructures is required in the future in order to be able to provide answers to the large and often complex questions we face. SITES wants to continue to be an important player in the work of meeting the major environmental and climate transitions that the world is facing.
SITES is funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) together with four partner organisations; the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala University, the University of Gothenburg and the Polar Research Secretariat. SLU is the coordinator for SITES and the secretariat is located at the SLU Ultuna campus. SLU is also responsible for the coordination of the SITES Data Portal and the SITES thematic programme Spectral through a cooperation agreement with Lund University. SLU has five participating stations in SITES; Svartberget Research Station, Röbäcksdalen Field Research Station, Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, Asa Research Station and Lönnstorp Research Station.