climate-induced forest mortality

Climate change is predicted to have immense and far-reaching effects on the world’s forests. Massive forest die-off has been documented recently across many tree species, often linked to global climate change type droughts. Such mortality events could lead to dramatic decreases in carbon stored by forests and severely affect animal populations and local economies dependent on tourism and logging.

We currently lack knowledge of the fundamental physiological mechanisms of how climate change will affect trees. Integrating the disciplines of plant physiology, ecology, and climate science is necessary to understand and predict climate change’s impacts. My research seeks to fuse these disciplines to provide novel and rigorous ways to assess and predict the impacts of climate change on forests.