BRS: Xiangtao Xu "More than deciduous and evergreen: unraveling tropical leaf phenological diversity with observations and models across scales"

host: Naomi Schwartz

Title: More than deciduous and evergreen: unraveling tropical leaf phenological diversity with observations and models across scales

Abstract: Despite being largely depicted as a dichotomy of evergreen and deciduous, tropical forests harbor a wide range of leaf phenological patterns with variations in leaf lifespan, dormancy duration, and timing of flush/shed at both inter-specific and intra-specific levels. The intriguing diversity in tropical leaf phenology and the associated variation in plant functional traits likely reflect distinctive plant resource use strategies and can influence ecosystem responses to environmental variations. However, there have been relatively few quantitative analyses on tropical phenology, resulting in rather simplistic representation of tropical phenology in terrestrial biosphere models. Here I integrate observations from both tropical dry forests and moist forests, process-based ecosystem model (ED2), and ecological optimality rules to unravel tropical phenological diversity. The resulting quantitative framework can help to improve representation of tropical functional diversity in terrestrial biosphere models and also shed light on the ecophysiology for temperate and boreal forests.

Topic: BRS Xiangtao Xu
Date: Nov 18, 2020 11:33 AM Vancouver

Meeting Recording:
https://ubc.zoom.us/rec/share/mP0vsvJlfijahd5fS70JfLa3UKxJozLVJC5kkVzpk…

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