Line Johansen
Research Scientist
(+47) 908 47 904
line.johansen@nibio.no
Place
Trondheim
Visiting address
Klæbuveien 153, bygg C 1.etasje, 7031 Trondheim
Biography
I am a plant ecologist with expertise on biodiversity, ecosystem services, functioning and management of semi-natural habitats.
I work with the interaction between food production and biodiversity, land use changes, nature restoration, pollinators, habitat management, nature monitoring and development of science-based assessments and frameworks for nature management.
Abstract
The 2025 update of the Norwegian Red List shows that coastal heathlands remain threatened. Key ongoing threats include abandonment of traditional land use and development of the areas. Recently compiled statistics from habitat mapping provide insights into the ecological condition of the heathlands. The data reveal that more than half of the remaining coastal heathland areas lack active management, putting them at risk of encroachment in the coming years. Moreover, data show that the proportion of areas in the late successional phase is surprisingly low, just over ten percent, despite widespread degradation due to encroachment. This suggests that degraded coastal heathlands are difficult to identify and are likely being misclassified as other habitat types, such as forest. To help field surveyors avoid misidentification, a map illustrating the potential distribution of coastal heathlands in Norway has been developed, along with clear inclusion and exclusion principles. The map extends the previously known northern range of heathlands and reaches south eastward toward heathland areas in Sweden. Norway currently lacks representative monitoring of coastal heathland, as existing programs miss rare habitats. It is therefore a welcome step that the Norwegian Environment Agency now proposes the development of a dedicated monitoring program.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Species-rich natural and semi-natural ecosystems are under threat owing to land use change. To conserve the biodiversity associated with these ecosystems, we must identify and target conservation efforts towards functionally important species and supporting habitats that create connections between remnant patches in the landscape. Here, we use a multi-layer network approach to identify species that connect a metanetwork of plant–bee interactions in remnant semi-natural grasslands which are biodiversity hotspots in European landscapes. We investigate how these landscape connecting species, and their interactions, persist in their proposed supporting habitat, road verges, across a landscape with high human impact. We identify 11 plant taxa and nine bee species that connect semi-natural grassland patches. We find the beta diversity of these connector species to be low across road verges, indicating a poor contribution of these habitats to the landscape-scale diversity in semi-natural grasslands. We also find a significant influence of the surrounding landscape on the beta diversity of connector species and their interactions with implications for landscape-scale management. Conservation actions targeted toward species with key functional roles as connectors of fragmented ecosystems can provide cost-effective management of the diversity and functioning of threatened ecosystems.