BRS: Belinda Medlyn "Predicting climate change impacts on forests and woodlands"

host: Sean Michaletz

Abstract: Climate change, driven by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, is well under way. Rising temperatures, increased heat extremes, and hotter (and therefore more severe) droughts are already having major impacts on native vegetation. Predicting the likely impacts of these changes in the near-term has become a pressing need, but requires a quantitative, model-oriented understanding of the effects of these environmental factors on the ecology and ecophysiology of plant species. In this seminar I will summarise recent results from our experimental research on the effects of CO2 enrichment, warming, heatwaves, drought and fire on tree species, and explain how this research is both being directed by, and informing, predictive models of forest function under global change.