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Project properties |
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| Title | Assessing Drought Impact on Tree Growth: Resilience in the Cerrado Biome |
| Group | Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 |
| Supervisor(s) | prof. Pieter Zuidema
dr. Peter Groenendijk (University of Campinas, Brazil) |
| Examiner(s) | dr. Peter van der Sleen |
| Contact info | Pieter.zuidema@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2025/08/01 |
| End date | |
| Description | Increasing temperatures and drought stress may change the responses of tropical trees to climatic variability. In the dry woody vegetation of the Cerrado biome in Brazil, these effects are expected to be strong because rainfall is low and droughts are intense. Yet, little is known about the cumulative effects of recurrent stressful episodes in tropical trees, and this can be assessed by analyzing changes in tree growth pre and post drought. This will involve analyzing tree ring width from the collected increment cores, to calculate indices of resistance, recovery, and resilience. Fieldwork will be done (if needed) in the state of Goias, Brazil; lab analysis at the University of Campinas within the research group of Peter Groenendijk.
Topic(s): Climate change effects / Tree ring analyses and wood anatomy Region(s): America's Climate(s): Tropical zone Corona proof: No |
| Used skills | |
| 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 |