Internship

Land vegetation feels the unprecedented pressure of a changing climate. A better understanding of how plants respond to environmental pressures such as heat waves and droughts will enable to design better mitigation measures. Eddy covariance is the leading method for monitoring greenhouse gas fluxes, providing direct and continuous measurements relevant to climate change. The products emanating from the eddy covariance method have become the standard reference for all flux related research such as studies on droughts, atmospheric inversions, satellite validation, and the like.

Future climate change will depend to a large extend on the ability of plants to increase photosynthesis (Gross Primary Productivity, GPP) with rising CO2. GPP is unfortunately not measurable directly on scales greater than a single plant. The lack of predictability of future GPP is hence one of the largest uncertainties in climate projections.

The main objective of the course will be to assess the influence of the sex (male or female) of the trees studied on the dynamics of wood formation, the final structure of the ring formed and sensitivity to climate