Tree recruitment in the Forest-tundra Ecotone

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This thesis is a product under the International Polar Year (IPY) core project PPS Arctic (http://ppsarctic.nina.no) which was financially supported by the Research Council of Norway via the IPY grant 176065/S30 to A. Hofgaard. I would like to thank my supervisors Lars Söderström (NTNU) and Annika Hofgaard (NINA) for their time and effort in helping me build and structure this project. I appreciate all the good advice and encouragement received from them these two years. I received help from Sigrid Lindmo when setting up for burning soil samples in the laboratory. Help in overcoming statistical problems was received from current PhD student, Thomas Kvalnes, working at the R-help centre as well as from Wolf L. Eiserhardt for solving problems encountered in 'R' when creating graphs. Much appreciated input was also received from Jonathan Wright on the use of appropriate statistical models for my data. At times the statistics were overwhelming but with the collected help of these people I made it through. My wonderful assistant, Jorun Hofgaard, was very helpful during the field work. She worked hard to help me reach my field work deadlines and made working in the mountains a lot of fun. I am very grateful that this project has allowed me to gain such a wonderful friend. These two years have supplied me with greater knowledgeable about scientific writing, statistics, field and laboratory work, along with many good memories for which I will take with me into the future. Last but not least, I would like to thank my closest friend and sister, Kaspara Albertsen, for supplying me with words of encouragement when pressure was building up. It is amazing how a good support system can give you the extra boost that you need to get back on track when things become overwhelming.