An integrated network on climate change research activities on shrubland ecosystems (INCREASE)

INCREASE is an EU-funded infrastructure of six large-scale climate change experiments and one phytotron designed to study climate change effects on shrublands. The aims are: •Improved technologies for large-scale climate change experiments with realistic manipulation of climate •Improved methodologies for studies of climate change effects on ecosystems •To provide access to large scale field-based climate change experiments to wider scientific community. The experiments in INCREASE combine 2 different approaches to study climate effects on ecosystems, the "space for time" substitution by investigating ecosystems along a precipitation and temperature gradient in Europe and by ecosystem manipulations. The research is focused on non-intrusive technologies for realistic climate manipulations and for non-destructive sampling methodologies and by synthesis of long data records obtained from the same infrastructures during two previously EU-funded projects: CLIMOOR (1998-2000) and VULCAN (2001-2004). The integrated set of infrastructures in INCREASE provide a unique combination of opportunities namely: •Access to climate change experimental facilities in a network of shrubland sites across Europe to identify the potential impacts of climate change •Close proximity of laboratories to the field facilities with instruments and technical expertise required to support research into ecosystem structure and function and the impacts of climate change. Five of the sites have been running for 7-10 years. The experiments provide three levels of information: •Between year data •Treatment data from climate manipulation •Across gradient data INCREASE experimentally changes the climate in 20 m2 plots in the field at 6 European locations to simulate the climate change. The manipulations are: - warming - drought - CO2 and interactive effects