Present occupation

Senior Scientist, Division of Forest and Landscape Ecology, Forest & Landscape Denmark, University of Copenhagen,  

Education and professional experience

IKS holds a degree in soil science (1993) from University of Copenhagen (KU) and a Ph.D. in ecology (1997) from KU entitled “Plant-microbe-soil interactions in arctic dwarf shrub heaths  -soil processes and plant resource allocation in response to environmental perturbations”. IKS has been post doctoral researcher at Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Massachusetts 1999-2000 “N-cycling in arctic ecosystems and cross-site analysis of climate effects on terrestrial ecosystems in arctic climate change experiments”. 

Qualifications and research activities

The main expertise is forest and heathland ecology with emphasis on how nutritional and climate stress affect processes and functions of terrestrial ecosystems e.g. plant phenology, plant succession, carbon-nitrogen interactions, plant-microbial competition, carbon sequestration, plant-soil interactions. The research in these key-processes has been conducted in large-scale field experiments with realistically manipulations of temperature, CO2, light, nutrients, water and carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Recent research projects focus on climate impact on above and belowground plant processes, including litter production, litter chemistry and  litter turn-over.