New 'Nature' article receiving lots of media coverage

The paper, entitled "Rate of tree carbon accumulation increases continuously with tree size" by a group of researchers including several CTFS scientists has inspired news reports from Nature, Archangel Ancient Tree Archives, csi-fm.org, foresteurope.org, Science Daily and The Conversation, just to name a few. The article has even been mentioned on numerous scientific blogs and discussion boards. It was posted online on January 15, 2014, and has already sparked a lot of discussion about forest management, and the future of the world's forests. The original paper highlights that, contrary to popular belief, tree growth does not slow down with age. In fact, the growth of a tree often speeds up with maturity.

 

Both Tropical and Temperate trees
showed no signs of slowing growth

Both Tropical and Temperate trees were included in the long-term study, which collected data from 403 species of trees from around the world.

According to Sci-News.com “Rather than slowing down or ceasing growth and carbon uptake, as we previously assumed, most of the oldest trees in forests around the world actually grow faster, taking up more carbon. A large tree may put on weight equivalent to an entire small tree in a year,” said co-author Dr Richard Condit from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Authors of the original report include: N. L. Stephenson, A. J.Das, R. Condit S. E. Russo, P. J. Baker, N. G. Beckman, D. A. Coomes, E. R. Lines, W. K. Morris,N. Ruger, E. A´ lvarez, C. Blundo, S. Bunyavejchewin, G. Chuyong, S. J. Davies, A´ . Duque, C. N. Ewango, O. Flores, J. F. Franklin, H. R. Grau, Z.Hao, M. E. Harmon, S. P. Hubbell, D. Kenfack, Y. Lin, J.-R. Makana, A. Malizia, L. R. Malizia, R. J. Pabst, N. Pongpattananurak, S.-H. Su, I-F. Sun, S. Tan, D. Thomas, P. J. van Mantgem, X.Wang, S. K.Wiser & M. A. Zavala

The original PDF can be found here.

                                                   

 

New CTFS - ForestGEO post-doc researcher joins The Winter Lab at STRI

Martijn Slot is a plant ecophysiologist currently working as CTFS - ForestGEO post-doctoral researcher in Klaus Winter’s lab at STRI.  Martijn obtained his PhD from the University of Florida, Gainesville, in the summer of 2013. His research focuses on understanding responses of tropical woody plants to climate change, and the consequences of climate change in the tropics.

Before coming to STRI, Martijn studied plant responses to environmental conditions in a wide range of environments and ecological ways, using a range of techniques. He evaluated Scots pine seedlings in central Siberia, analyzed species differences of lowland tropical forest species in Bolivia, and used dendrochronology of oak stems and roots in the Swiss Alps.
 

In the past several years, Martijn has primarily worked on temperature effects on tropical trees and lianas. As an experiment, Martijn warmed leaves in a tropical forest canopy to evaluate the capacity for thermal acclimation of leaf respiration. By collaborating with biogeochemists and modelers, results of his research have been used to improve the capacity of global models to simulate the carbon cycle under realistic climate change scenarios.

Martijn is now addressing questions regarding the responses of growth, photosynthesis and respiration of tropical tree species to increased temperatures, and how these responses are affected by source-sink relationships.

Click here to learn more about the researech being done at the Winter Lab.