Impacts of mining dust deposition on forest biodiversity and ecosystem services (MINEDUST)

Purpose and goal:

The main purpose of MINEDUST is to generate knowledge about the effects of dust deposition from the mining industry on biodiversity and ecosystem services. The long-term goal of the project is to be able to give the scientific community, stakeholders and decision-makers a better knowledge base in the subject.

Expected results and effects:

We expect that our project will increase knowledge on mine dust effects on biodiversity and ecosystem service, but also on metal uptake in ground vegetation with implications for, e.g., quality of reindeer fodder, berry production, and wood production. This basic knowledge can provide a roadmap for future evaluation and monitoring of mine dust effects on biodiversity and important ecosystem services.

We anticipate that this knowledge will improve the evidence-base concerning dust pollution from the mining industry. Approach and implementation: We will achieve the goals of the project with a combination of field and laboratory dust deposition studies on: - biodiversity patterns (species richness and composition) of plant, moss, lichen and pollinator communities.

- provision of ecosystem services that are beneficial to human society, such as wood production, non-timber forest products such as food sources for reindeer, berries and recreational values. -plant, moss, and lichen biological regulators, such as growth, vitality, fertility, and uptake of metals.