Research Question: What is the relationship between Norway’s present plant biodiversity and medieval monastic sites?
Project Background: There are long-held notions that medieval monastic occupation resulted in significant changes to plant biodiversity in Norway, especially in the regions surrounding monastic sites. Across Europe medieval monks are known for their agricultural pursuits in transforming ‘wilderness’ into cultivated fields and meadows for grazing. Monks are even thought to have imported plants from other countries, in some cases introducing new species. Certainly, interesting observations have been made regarding biodiversity at these locations. Of especial relevance to this project are the medicinal plants currently growing in concentrations around Norway’s monastic ruins. The attributions of species introductions to monastic settlement are however anecdotal, and have yet to be tested scientifically.
What you will do: This research project will take a phytogeographical approach to exploring the relationship between Norway’s current plant biodiversity and medieval monastic sites. Plant species will be systematically identified within vegetation plots at and surrounding monastic ruins. Species observation data from Artsdatabanken and GBIF, supported by the results of these vegetation surveys, will be compared with the locations of the monasteries, using statistical analyses and geographic information systems (GIS). Iron Age agrarian sites identified across western Norway will serve as cultural controls in an effort to discover plant diversity specifically influenced by monastic activity over cultural activity more broadly. The aim of this comparison is to seek patterns in the spatial distribution of Norway’s current plant populations in association with these historic sites, in order to identify additional cultural relict plants (or plant communities) to those recorded in literary sources and suggested so far.
Working Environment: This research will be associated with the REA:Life UiO Life Science Convergence Environments project. This highly interdisciplinary project aims to discover bioactive compounds from Nordic plants whose medicinal potential was once locally exploited but has since been overlooked in modern medicine.
You will be based at the Oslo Natural History Museum, working with members of the museum’s GEco and EDGE research groups. Any living plant specimens collected as part of this project’s vegetation surveys will be stored and grown at the Oslo Botanical Gardens and used for further study, providing samples for pharmacological testing as part of the REA:Life project.
What you will learn: This project is an opportunity to develop experience in conducting vegetation surveys as well as in spatial exploration and statistical analysis of vegetation data. Through this research you will also gain familiarity with historic medicinal plant use as well as digital mapping and statistical softwares.
Expected Background: Familiarity with plant taxonomy and identification of Norwegian flora is required for this project. Experience with GIS and/or the R programming language is an advantage.
Expected Outcomes: At least one scientific publication.
Supervisors: Anneleen Kool (anneleen.kool@nhm.uio.no) , Rebecca Blakeney (r.a.blakeney@nhm.uio.no), Olav Skarpaas (olav.skarpaas@nhm.uio.no)