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Project properties |
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| Title | UAV canopy sampling and leaf water potentials for Climate-Smart Forestry |
| Group | Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 |
| Supervisor(s) | FEM group: prof.dr.ir. FJ (Frank) Sterck, A (Arjen) de Jonge MSc, ACE (Eva) Meijers MSc
GRS group: dr. H (Harm) Bartholomeus |
| Examiner(s) | dr. M. (Mathieu) Decuyper |
| Contact info | Eva.Meijers@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2024/02/01 |
| End date | 2024/11/01 |
| Description | Forest density reductions are suggested to protect our forests from future dry and hot conditions. However, effectiveness of density reductions remains incongruent and not adequately tested. This is primarily due to the lack of experiments. We hypothesize that a density optimum exists at moderate levels of reductions, i.e. ~20-40%. At such an optimum forest density, competition is reduced substantially, yet negative effects from too high levels of incoming radiation and wind speed are kept at bay.
For your thesis, you will make use of an existing forest density experiment located throughout the Netherlands. The experiment concerns even-aged monocultures plots of Douglas, Scots Pine and Common beech, on which various densities have been created in 2019. During the growing season, you will repeatedly sample tree branches by using a UAV canopy sampler (of course together with an experienced UAV pilot). You will then measure leaf water potentials in the field to quantify the differences in tree water status between the trees at informative moments during the day. You will connect these data to dendrometer and UAV thermal data. You will analyse your data in R. Topic(s): Leaf water potentials/ UAV Canopy sampling/ dendrometer/ Thermal spectroscopy/ Climate change effects / Sustainable forest management/ Ecophysiology Region(s): The Netherlands Climate(s): Temperate zone Corona proof: Yes |
| Used skills | R, fieldwork, statistics |
| Requirements | Standard for MSc thesis:
- 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 |