SPLS Seminar: Tree responses to extreme climate in an enclosed tropical forest at Biosphere 2

Abstract: Trees in tropical forests are likely going to experience climates they have not experienced over the past several million years. How tropical trees will respond to increasing carbon dioxide and resulting higher temperature and precipitation change remains largely uncertain, due to the lack of experiments recreating these future conditions for whole trees.

Biosphere 2 provides a unique location for experimentation with increased carbon dioxide, temperature and drought. I will discuss some of the previous experiments at Biosphere 2 to help understand tree and ecosystem responses to future climate change and the new direction for research we have taken in the past several years.