EcoPhys

Our main topics of research are:

• The ecology of long distance transport systems in plants (xylem and phloem hydraulics).
• The water and carbon economy of plants and their interactions.
• Tree and forest responses to environmental stress, with a particular emphasis on drought and nitrogen deposition effects.
• The distribution and variability of plant functional traits and their role on vegetation function and dynamics.
• The provision of ecosystem services by forests, in the Mediterranean and in developing countries (Kenya, Brazil, Malaysia).

The types of measurements and methodologies we use include:

• Plant hydraulics (water potentials, xylem and phloem structure and hydraulic conductivities, vulnerability to xylem embolism, etc.).
• Concentrations of non-structural carbohydrates in plant tissues.
• Gas-exchange (stomatal conductance, transpiration, assimilation, respiration) at the leaf/soil/canopy levels.
• Sap flow.
• Stable isotopes (d¹⁵N, d¹⁸O, d¹⁷O, d¹³C, dD) in water, plant and soil samples.
• Dendrochronology and forest growth dynamics.
• Ecosystem scale measurements of water, CO₂ and trace gas fluxes.
• Forest demography.
• Analysis of large scale ecological datasets (functional traits databases, national forest inventories, etc.).
• Statistical and mechanistic modelling: from tissue-level models of water transport in the xylem network to organismal or ecosystem-level models of water and carbon fluxes.

Col·laboradors principals del CREAF:

• Jordi Vayreda (National Forest Inventories, C stocks and fluxes, ecosystem services).
• Javier Retana (Functional traits, National Forest Inventories, C stocks and fluxes).
• Francisco Lloret (Forest dynamics, resilience, forest mortality).
• Miquel de Cáceres (Regional scale modelling of vegetation dynamics).