ForestGEO Researchers Receive New Funding to Explore Forest Function
A National Science Foundation grant of nearly $1 million will fund new research
at two ForestGEO sites – Harvard Forest and Smithsonian Environmental Research
Center (SERC) starting later this year.
The $965,000 award was granted to University of Maryland Associate
Professor and ForestGEO partner Nathan Swenson, ForestGEO Director Stuart
Davies, and Temperate Forest Program Coordinator Sean McMahon to investigate
forest function from genes to canopies. The research aims to quantify how
inter- and intra-annual differential gene expression in leaves and genotypic
differentiation are related to leaf level gas exchange, fine scale measurements
of tree growth, and carbon dioxide flux measured at the scale of forest
canopies.
Forests’
ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide makes them integral to regulating
climate change. But the thousands of individual trees within a forest vary
greatly in their physiological and growth response to environmental change. In
order to predict future forest functioning, individual leaf processes need to be
linked to larger forest level processes. This research will use innovative new
technology and specific measurements of individual tree growth and physiology
to address this challenge.
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| Harvard Forest, USA |
“The
work uniquely scales from genes to ecosystems while simultaneously considering
spatial and temporal variation in forest function”, said Swenson. “Ecology is
entering a exciting new age where the substantial advances made in genome and
transcriptome sequencing can now be utilized in non-model organisms in the wild.
Coupling these advances in ‘omics with detailed measurements of plant
performance from the leaf to the canopy scale was thought to be impossible only
a few years ago and it is expected to transform ecology”.
Harvard
Forest and SERC are also part of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), which is supported by NSF. It
is a network of ecological observation facilities with sites across the U.S.
that gathers and analyzes data on climate change, land use change, invasive
species, and how these influence biodiversity and natural resources. Goals of
NEON include forecasting continental-scale environmental change, informing
natural resource decisions, and engaging the next generation of scientists.
Related Site(s):
Harvard Forest
