News
| August, 2024 Reti Ranniku defended her PhD thesis titled “Impact of environmental conditions and soil microbiome on greenhouse gas fluxes from soil and tree stems in hemiboreal drained peatland forest“. In this thesis, she studied seasonal patterns of soil and tree stem greenhouse gas (CH₄, N₂O and CO₂) fluxes in a hemiboreal drained peatland forest, focusing more closely on the previously understudied winter period and spring freeze-thaw cycles. Well done Reti! |  | |
 | July, 2024 The 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation in Kigali, Rwanda, brought together over 700 participants from 50+ countries to address climate challenges in tropical regions. This event emphasized protecting biodiversity hotspots—vital for carbon and nitrogen storage and ecosystem services—and fostered collaborative solutions to strengthen tropical ecosystem resilience by uniting scientists, policymakers, and conservationists. At the conference, the ERC project PeatlandN2O, led by the University of Tartu and Prof Ülo Mander, made a notable impact by advancing understanding of greenhouse gas dynamics in tropical peatlands. Our speakers, Prof. Ülo Mander, who presented on “Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions in Tropical Peatland Forests,” and Associate Prof. Mikk Espenberg, who discussed the “Soil Microbial Nitrogen Cycle in Tropical Peatland Forests,” contributed valuable insights to the session “Ecology, Threats, and Conservation Status of Tropical Peatlands,” organized by our good collaborator Angela Gallego-Sala. In addition, we secured the perfect keynote speakers, Kristell Hergoualc’h and Scott Winton—who also captivated audiences in Kigali with their insights on climate resilience in tropical ecosystems—for our AGU2024 session, “Linking Greenhouse Gas, Volatile Organic Compound, and Climatic Processes Across Interfaces in Different Terrestrial Ecosystems, Highlighting Tropical Wetlands,” led by Mikk Espenberg and Ülo Mander in Washington, D.C. | |
| July, 2024 Peatland N2O team field trip in Kabale region of Uganda, where wetlands of Muhabura and Kampala are continuously in danger due to pollution and rapid encroachment of urban areas. Wetland areas are often illegally used to grow a variety of staple food crops. Polluted material is then absorbed into the wetlands and crops. The project team set up the task to find out the price the global climate is paying for the farming of peatlands. We collected gas and peat samples to analyse biogeochemistry in potato fields on rich papyrus fen peat around Kabale. These have shown some of the highest N2O fluxes we have ever measured around the world!!! |  | |
| May, 2024 Dr. Ramita Khanongnuch (ORCID: 0000-0001-7679-5928) has joined the project as a postdoctoral researcher. She gave the presentation “New bacterial processes in CH4 emissions mitigation in boreal lake ecosystems” during the seminar of Geography Department. |  | |
 | April, 2024 Prof. Ülo Mander was elected as a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences in the field of global change on 4th of April 2024. Congratulations!!! The project team field trip(s) continued to potential new study sites in temperate ecosystems: Paluoja, Sirvaste (arable peatland), Kärdla (floodplain fen meadow) and Kooraste. Field sites have been selected to represent hot spots of N2O emission in peatlands paired with their less-disturbed control variants. | |
| March, 2024 PeatlandN2O expedition to the Republic of Congo took place 04.03 – 15.03.2024 as part of establishing the project network of field sites. During field works, the measurements of greenhouse gas flows, isotope and biomass decomposition experiments, and collection of soil and plant samples were done in the Epena tropical forest swamp. Project members had fruitful collaboration and received the support of researchers from Marien Ngouabi University, Brazzaville. The project overview was presented to local scientists and university lecturers at the seminar, and a fruitful discussion followed the presentation. During fieldwork, the PeatlandN2O members enjoyed the hospitality of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Congo, whose station is located in Epena Nouabale-Ndoki National Park and Lac Télé Community Reserve. Read more -> |  | |
| January, 2024 Three oral presentations on the ideas and insights of the PeatlandN2O were given by Ülo Mander, Kaido Soosaar and Mikk Espenberg at the Biogeomon2024 conference in Puerto Rico, San Juan, University of New Hampshire, NH, USA, in January 2024. | ||
| December, 2023 Prof. Ülo Mander made two poster presentations at the AGU23 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, USA on 11-15.12.2023. In the picture, Dr. Kuno Kasak (Tartu University, left) and Prof. Ülo Mander meeting with the member of the PeatlandN2O Extended Knowledge Board, Prof. Lulie Melling from Sarawak Tropical Peat Research Institute (Malaysia) and her colleague on the fields of the conference. |  | |
 | The presentation on PeatlandN2O project was held in Tartu University Museum’s White Hall (on Dome Hill) on Thursday, 7th December 2023, 13:00 – 17:00 PROGRAM PRESENTATONS | |
| September 2023. We started the project and we have our logo ready. |  |
