Congratulations to Twinkle Solanki who has received a year’s grant from the Herlin Foundation to continue her PhD “Improving estimates of carbon assimilation and light use by forests by scaling processes from the leaf to canopy levels”.
Pictorial representation of measurements of irradiance and leaf optical properties at vertical gradients of the forest canopy
Congratulations to Craig Brelsford on the acceptance of the first publication towards his PhD, which will shortly be published in Trees: Structure and Function. But in particular, a big thank you to the two reviewers for this article for Trees who gave us particularly thoughtful and constructive feedback and wrote really well-considered and knowledgeable reviews to help us improve the paper.
Dormant Twigs Receiving Spectra with and without blue light
Here’s a transcript of some of the best questions in Spanish and translated into English: about research into climate change followed by a discussion of what it’s like working in science. Aquí abajo hay una síntesis de la charla.
I’m just back from 10-days in Malaga writing and the discussing the content of the upcoming assessment by the UNEP Environmental Effects Assessment Panel (EEAP) for ozone depletion and related climate change. At the end of this year, a comprehensive quadrennial assessment will be published.
Paul Barnes, Robyn Lucas, and Keith Solomon, presenting our findings in a public forum at the Rectory of Malaga University on 20th Feb 2018.
With Paul Barnes, Janet Bornman, and Sharon Robinson, we discussed the most important research published during the last 4 years on subjects including, the consequences for terrestrial ecosystems of the positive phase of the Southern Annualar Mode (SAM) over Antarctica and ozone-related climate changes over South America. We considered new research on plant response to fluctuating UV environments and improvements in our mechanistic understanding of the role of UV-photoreceptor UVR8. We highlighted interactions between UV and herbivores, pathogens, and other aspects of climate change, and considered the role of photofacillitation in UV-mediated photodegradation.
The next step in this assessment is to send out the reports for peer-review, before meeting again in September in Vermont to finalize the content, after which it is presented to the Parties of the Montreal Protocol and to the WHO and WMO and then published for the scientific community.
Congratulations to Santa Neimane for successfully defending her Bachaelor’s thesis in Plant Physiology at the University of Latvia of Riga: EFFECT OF LIGHT SPECTRAL QUALITY ON BETULA PENDULA AND FAGUS SYLVATICA LEAF LITTER DECOMPOSITION DURING SENESCENCE.
This research was carried out at the University of Helsinki and supervised by Matthew Robson and Jevgenija Ņečajeva.
We are very happy to announce that Twinkle Solanki has received her PhD Study Rights from the DPPS to start her doctorate studying: Upscaling the Optical Properties of leaves to model their contribution to canopy light use efficiency and carbon assimilation over vertical and horizontal profiles of spectral irradiance, under the supervisions of Matthew Robson, Jon Atherton from the Optics of Photosynthesis Group, and Anu Heikkilä from the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
Twinkle has funding from CIMO to come to Finland and already started her research taking measurements from the canopy towers at Hyytiälä Forestry Research Station of the University of Helsinki.
Saara Hartikainen and Matthew Robson recently headed to Lammi Biological Station to “star” in some short films explaining the educational research activities that we designed for the Lammi Research Natural Trail.
We hope to encourage the public to have a go at estimating Leaf Area Index in the young silver birch stand using the canopy scope activity, and to help in assessing leaf, flower, and fruit development in plants growing in quadrats on the forest floor.
The data that we collect from the public will be used to help us estimate phenological development, and will eventually be compared with data from different sites to improve our understanding of the controls on the length of the growing season and forest canopy cover.
Here are some shots from the film-makers in action!
Titta Kotilainen has also been instrumental in setting up the possibility for DPPS students at the University of Helsinki students to participate in a course on libRadtran: a library of radiative transfer models that allows users to access irradiance data for application in their research.
This course, run in cooperation this the FMI, was given by Arve Kylling (NILU) the actual developer of libRadtran and took place on 25th-26th October 2016 in Exactum building of the Kumpula Campus, Helsinki.
The course is open to DPPS students at the University of Helsinki and partly sponsored by CanSEE and the DPPS.
Congratulations to Paula Salonen on completing her Master’s Degree in Plant Biology and the University of Helsinki: Wild bees along a gradient of urbanization: a study of the effects of environmental variables on bees with a comparison of two capture methods. Supervised by Matthew Robson and Stephen Venn
