Nuolja, also known as Njulla, is a field research site in
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
that stretches across
Mt. Njulla.
With the mountain to the east, the village of
Abisko
Abisko (; se, Ábeskovvu) is a village in Sápmi (Lapland (Sweden), Lapland), in northern Sweden, roughly 250 km within the Arctic Circle, and near Abisko National Park, located 4 km west of the village. It had 85 inhabitants as of 20 ...
to the south, and bordering
Lake Torneträsk, this is a varied-habitat field site.
Mountain birch forests are one of the main appeals of this research site.
The name "Nuolja" may also refer specifically to a 12km hiking trail on Mt. Njulla, Sweden.
History
Nuolja was founded in 1917 by botanist
Thore E. Fries, who published a lengthy report in 1925 titled "Ecological and Phenological Observations at Abisko Over the Years".
. Fries hiked up the mountain and down again some 150 times, helping set the location of the future field site, assessing how snow melt dates affected plant phenology.
Research
Nuolja serves as a key climate change assessment site, echoing the original research done by Thore. E. Fries in 1917. In 2017, 100 years after his work, researchers began re-assessing how climate change has affected both snow melt and plant phenology.
This work will be able to be directly compared to Fries' publication. There are also several tree-line studies occurring, and a research project assessing alpine bee populations and the flowering plants they visit.
A
citizen science
Citizen science (CS) (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the public (who are sometimes re ...
project also launched in 2017, asking visitors to the area to collect field data on approximate 20 key plant species.
By submitting sightings and photographs, researchers will be able to assess a broader and more numerous set of samples, across a variety of climate events and elevations. The trail, opened in June 2017, will be able to be accessed by four or by chairlift.
References
{{coord, 68, 22, N, 18, 42, E, display=title, region:SE_type:mountain_source:GNS-enwiki
Mountains of Sweden