Projects

1. Dencroecology in high elevation forests.

To determine how radial growth responds to disturbances (climate, anthropogenic historical use, insect outbreaks, fungi, mistletoe) in woody plant species (trees, shrubs). To find out how these changes in growth translate into functional changes in vigor (forest decline) and dynamics (masting, regeneration, establishment, mortality, succession, colonization, ecotone shifts). To quantify and to forecast how tree growth will respond to climate warming.

Old Pinus uncinata tree Alpine Pyrenean treeline

2. Growth in tropical dry forests.

We use tree-rings to reconstruct the dynamics (age, growth rates, survival rates) of timber tree species in managed tropical dry forests. We aim to combine dendrochronology and matrix modelling for performing demographic estimates of the main timber tree species in a selectively logged forest (INPA, Bolivia). This novel information would allow increasing the knowledge of these threatened forests and improving their use and conservation.

Case study: Retrospective growth analyses in tropical dry forests based on dendrochronology (BBVA Foundation).

Selective logging in the INPA dry tropical forest (Chiquitania, Bolivia)

3. Reconstructing climate and forest dynamics from tree-ring proxies.

We aim to reconstruct past climate and forest dynamics (growth, mortality, functioning) using dendrochronological proxies (tree-ring width, density, C and O isotope discrimination). We want to answer questions on past and current responses of forests to climate and other disturbances (anthropogenic use) to link ecological and paleoecological perspectives.

Case study: Mortality and dynamics of Pyrenean forests (OAPN).

Old Pinus uncinata tree

4. Cambial biology and xylogenesis.

We are monitoring and altering xylogenesis (the phenology of wood formation) to understand how trees form wood as related to other growth components (primary and root growth), to infer how xylogenesis is controlled by disturbances (climate, drought, logging, nitrogen availability) and to understand how growth sinks affect carbon and water use efficiency in trees.

Case study: Xylogenesis and the functional xylem anatomy of woody plants (PNI+D+i).

Scots pine tracheids in different maturation stages