Research
Keywords: Plant Root Systems, Terrestrial Ecosystems, Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER), Forest Ecology, Carbon, Allometry, Carbon Sequestration, Forest Carbon
Estimating risk to forest carbon due to ecological disturbance
This project is the focus of my postdoc as a member of Jonathan Thompson’s Landscape Ecology Lab and as part of the Harvest Forest Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program. I work with the lab's existing landscape modeling framework and several large datasets to examine long-term, broad-scale impacts of land use, climate change, invasive insects, and their interactions. I will be quantifying opportunities and risks associated with the use of forests in climate change mitigation. The research will build on previous work done in the Thompson Lab, especially the Massachusetts Decarbonization Land Sector Report.
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Which biotic and abiotic factors most influence the depth and width of coarse root systems globally?
Plant roots act as the plumbing networks that move water and nutrients from belowground upward, and move carbon from the near-surface downward. This biotic plumbing system plays a major role in the terrestrial carbon, hydrologic, and nutrient cycles. To understand the depth and distribution of plant root systems, we have expanded the Root Systems of Individual Plants Database (RSIP) to ~6000 observations. The maximum rooting extents of individual plants scales primarily allometrically with plant height and width, and are secondly affected by temperature seasonality and water availability. The RSIP Manuscript has been submitted.
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How does plant volume scale above and below-ground?
The allometric scaling of plant biomass has been well studied and recorded globally. For example, Falster et al. (2015) created the Biomass and Allometry Database (BAAD) recording the biomass of over 21,000 plants worldwide. However, the volume taken up by plants has not been equally observed. Knowing the space taken-up by plants is critical, as the rhizospere, volume of soil dominated by roots, is the most active layer belowground, and influences many terrestrial processes. Using the Wurzelaltas plant profiles (Kutchera et al., 1960-2009); we have created measurements of plant volume across three dimensions: 1) plant tissue volume and length, 2) system volume, 3) sphere of influence (i.e. rhizospere or canopy volume). To make these measurements, we have adapted the RIA for ImageJ package, created by Gillaume Lobet, edited for our study by Frankie Liu. The analyses are undergoing and the manuscript is in prep (submission expected by Fall, 2019).
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Do co-occuring tree species stratify the depths at which they take-up critical nutrients such as water and nitrogen?
It is well known that forest species stratify their growth in the canopy, leading to separate ecological niches across tree species (Canham et al., 2006). Root systems similarly compete for space belowground, but these dynamics are less understood (Cadotte et al., 2011). In this study, we aim to understand the depths that plants acquire their most vital belowground resources, water and nitrogen. Furthermore, we analyze the relationship between the depths of resource acquisition and the vertical plant root system distribution. We will do this by quantifying the natural abundance of soil and plant δ15N and δD for three primary temperate forest species (Pinus strobus, Acer rubrum, and Quercus rubra), and their vertical root biomass distribution. This study is taking place at the Thompson Farm Flux tower site in Durham, NH during summer 2019.
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Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur Collaborator Research Scientist at The University of New Hampshire |
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