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Project properties |
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| Title | Can we link drought effects on tropical tree growth with tree mortality? |
| Group | Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 |
| Supervisor(s) | prof.dr. PA (Pieter) Zuidema
dr. M (Mathieu) Decuyper |
| Examiner(s) | dr. JP (Peter) van der Sleen |
| Contact info | Pieter.Zuidema@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2023/09/01 |
| End date | |
| Description | Droughts will reduce the capacity of tropical forests to sequester CO2 and store in in wood in the long run. This will have implications for the role of tropical forests in the global carbon cycle. Tree-ring analyses have revealed that growth reduction during drought years is small, but the possible increase in tree mortality due to droughts are poorly known for tropical forests. You will combine results from tree-ring analyses with remote sensing data to (1) quantify the reduction in canopy greenness during and after drought years, (2) evaluate the relation between drought-induced shifts in greenness with those in tree growth. You will use an existing database on drought effects at >450 locations across the tropics (www.tropicaltreeringnetwork.org) and a forest change monitoring tool based on Landsat images (AVOCADO: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112829). No fieldwork.
Topic(s): Population and forest dynamics/ Tree ring analyses and wood anatomy Region(s): America's/ Africa /Asia Climate(s): Tropical zone Corona proof: Yes |
| Used skills | Proficiency in using R |
| Requirements | - WEC-31806 Ecological Methods I, or a comparable alternative course;
- One FEM course (at least), depending on the topic of the thesis: FEM-30306 Forest Ecology and Forest Management, FEM-30806 Resource Dynamics Sustainable Utilization, FEM-32306 Agroforestry, or Models for Ecological Systems FEM-31806 |