I am a passionate plant physiologist that loves rock climbing, tree climbing, diving and hiking.
I'm particularly interested in tree canopy dieback and the effects of drought on leaf desiccation. My PhD focuses on finding the mechanism behind leaf death and which plant traits can confer higher drought resistance.
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Where and when: leaf traits
variation and time to death in trees canopy
V. TONET, K. M. JOHNSON, T. J. BRODRIBB
School of Biological Sciences, University of
Tasmania, Sandy Bay 7001 Tasmania,
Australia
Worldwide decrease in water availability dramatically
impacts plant success and exacerbates mortality phenomenon like canopy dieback
with severe consequences on plant diversity and productivity. To understand the
magnitude of canopy damage and the consequences on tree mortality we need a
precise and deep knowledge of leaf variation to drought stress and in
particular, which drought-related traits vary the most. This allows
us to calculate and monitor when and how much canopy will be damaged during
drought events. We have captured leaf variation by measuring traits that determined
the point of runaway cavitation, estimating which traits vary the most and
which are constant. At the same time, we applied these findings to calculate
the time of runaway cavitation from dry-down data obtained by natural
population. Our results show the amount of variation hidden in trees canopy and
how it affects time to death, broadening our understanding of climate change
impacts on plants and application for plant conservation.