High climbers in high carbon

With John Hickson, University of Nottingham.

All seminars online. Please contact sue.davis@nottingham.ac.uk for the link. Subject to change.

Part of the Geosciences Seminar Series.

Lianas (woody climbing plants) are a component of many of the world’s forests. Lianas have been found to be proliferating in many of the forested biomes globally including in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical forests. Currently there are several drivers proposed for this increase in liana abundance including; increasing forest disturbance, lengthened dry seasons in the neo-tropics, rising temperatures and globally elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).

My PhD focuses on the proliferation of the temperate liana species Parsonsia straminea within an Australian temperate/sub-tropical woodland. The woodland hosts the EucFACE carbon enrichment experiment, a facility increasing local atmospheric CO2 concentrations to study the response of forests to elevated CO2. This has allowed for study into whether lianas are indeed responding to elevated CO2 or whether the proliferation of the local lianas is in fact related to local disturbance.

I will be presenting upon the results found as part of my work with low temporal density Terrestrial Laser Scanning as well as presenting the high temporal density photographic data which I am currently working with.