Research themes
Forests & global change
The world’s forests are changing, and fast, with major implications for the plant’s climate, biodiversity and the billion or so people whose livelihood depend on these ecosystems. At Selva lab we are using a range of approaches – including manipulative experiments, large-scale datasets, remote sensing and modelling – to understand how forests ecosystems are responding to multiple drivers of global change, such as land-use intensification and climate change.
Mapping forest carbon stocks & fluxes
Forests play a key role in mitigating climate change by sequestering and storing huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. However, large uncertainties remain about the size of the forest carbon sink and its resilience to environmental change. To tackle this challenge, we are using emerging remote sensing technologies to map forest carbon stocks and fluxes across spatial and ecological scales – from the growth and mortality of individual trees, to the dynamics of entire landscapes.
Global drivers of canopy structure
Forest canopies are the primary interface between the biosphere and the atmosphere in terms of energy, carbon and water fluxes. But because they are so hard to access from the ground they remain poorly understood. Using 3D imaging technologies such as LiDAR and photogrammetry from both airborne and ground-based platforms, we hope to shed new light on the processes that shape the structure and function of forests.
Tree architecture & allometry
Trees come in all different shapes and sizes – from short and stout, to impossibly tall and slender. Understanding what controls this huge degree of natural variation in tree architecture is critical to accurately estimating forest carbon stocks, as well as predicting what forests might look like in the future. To answer these questions, we are compiling the world’s first truly global tree allometry database and have recently begun experimenting with cutting-edge terrestrial laser scanning technologies.
Biodiversity & ecosystem functioning
There is ample evidence to suggest that biodiversity is critical to maintaining functioning ecosystems. But most work exploring the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has taken place in systems that are experimentally tractable, such as grasslands. Using long-term growth records derived from tree rings, we are exploring how tree diversity influences forest productivity and its resilience to climate extremes.
Microclimate ecology
Local-scale microclimatic conditions in forest understoreys directly influence ecological process at all levels of organization – from the metabolic and demographic rates of individual organisms, to whole-ecosystem nutrient cycling. Yet our ability to measure forest microclimate at ecologically-relevant scales continues to lag behind. We are developing new approaches to map forest microclimate from the air and understand its importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
Side gigs
As you may have guessed from browsing this website, at Selva lab we spend a lot of time thinking about forests. But on occasion we have also been known to stray beyond the tree line. Some of our other long-term research interests include invasion ecology, particularly in the context of coastal dune and tropical ecosystems. We are also fascinated by how people make decisions about prioritising research and conservation interventions. If you share some of these interests why not get in touch?
Balancing basic and applied research
At Selva lab we strive to do curiosity-driven research with real world impacts
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Latest publications
Check out some of our recent work