In November, Thibaut Juillard defended his doctoral thesis, thus concluding his time at the PERL laboratory. We would like to highlight that Thibaut worked tirelessly for four years, demonstrating constant curiosity and passion for his subject: the study of the physiological advantages of the invasive windmil palm in the southern Alps in a context of drought and heat.
Best of luck for the future, Thibaut!
Céline is a new PhD student at PERL!
Carbon balance under dual droughts: Disentangling the effects of soil and atmospheric moisture on tree sink and source dynamics in European forests.
in a few lines Céline is here introducing herself to the lab:
My name is Céline, I’m from the Netherlands which is where I also did my master’s in Biology, specializing in Ecology, at Wageningen University & Research (WUR).
During my MSc thesis, I studied how fire damage affects physiological processes of tropical trees in the Bolivian Amazon. I conducted a tree-level burning experiment at the base of the trunk on several small trees and measured various plant traits before and after fire exposure to get more insights in the mechansims underlying fire-induced tree mortality.
I’m interested in studying the impacts of climate change on the physiology of trees and so I’m very excited to now be working on the FutureForest project for my PhD! We will study how atmospheric and soil droughts affect leaf-to-whole-tree ecophysiological processes that drive growth, carbon sequestration, and tree mortality. I will primarily do measurements at the VPDrought experiment in Pfynwald.
Thank you Céline, for sharing with us a bit of your background and we wish you all the best for your PhD!
Léo is back at PERL, but as a PhD student now!
From Survival to Resilience: Acclimation as a Lifeline for European Forests under Climate Change
Léo is yet again back in the lab after a Master thesis and a civil service, this time to start a PhD ! His focus is going to be on trees and forest responses to heat events, untangling the mechanisms that make them more resistant or more vulnerable to those events. He will try to assess the quality of existing models such as SUREau and use it at the forest level, to evaluate how European forests will behave towards the end of the century, in the context of climate change.
We are very happy to have you back here Léo and we wish you good luck for your project!