Climate Change Impacts on Boreal Tree Function: Implications for Carbon and Water Fluxes

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Climate change is already affecting Canada's boreal forest, reducing carbon uptake and sequestration during hot, dry years through reduced growth and large-scale mortality events. Because of the vast amount of stored carbon in these forests and their extensive geographic span, even relatively small changes in boreal carbon cycling or species composition can have global impacts on climate, many of which can further accelerate high latitude climate warming. My research program focuses on understanding how Canada's major boreal tree species respond to elevated temperatures, high CO2 concentrations and water stress, to determine the mechanisms underlying recent forest decline. Over the next five years, my lab will focus on assessing how these climate change factors alter photosynthesis, respiration, water transport, and drought tolerance in economically and ecologically important Canadian boreal tree species, as well as how acclimation of these physiological traits affects tree growth and survival. I will then use process-based models that take this mechanistic data and use it to predict how forest productivity and vulnerability to drought and heat stress will change under various future climate scenarios. My work on understanding functional tree responses to global change environmental factors has already led to a strong record of publishing high-quality research in premier journals. The proposed work will provide crucial information for predicting how Canada's forests will respond to climate change to improve forest management plans and climate change mitigation strategies. This grant will allow me to directly support the training of five graduate students and six undergraduate summer researchers, as well as fifteen undergraduate student volunteers, in pressing forestry and stress physiology-related issues that directly impact Canada's economy and environment.