Projects
Microclimatic buffering of plant responses to macroclimate warming in temperate forests Ghent University
FORMICA focuses on the responses of plants. The principal objective of FORMICA is to quantify and understand the influence of microclimatic buffering in modulating the response of understorey plant individuals, populations, species and communities to macroclimate warming. Four innovative, interdisciplinary yet complementary work packages (WPs) will be carried out within FORMICA across four spatial scales. WPs1-3 will use complementary data, ...
Functional significance of forest biodiversity in Europe Ghent University
FunDivEUROPE (FUNctional significance of forest bioDIVersity in EUROPE) proposes to quantify the effect of forest biodiversity on ecosystem function and services in major European forest types in the main bioclimatic regions of Europe. FunDivEUROPE will be based on four scientific platforms and seven cross-cutting Work Packages. The project will combine a global network of tree diversity experiments (Experimental Platform) with a newly ...
CARBIZON – Building sustainable, fertile carbon soils. University of Antwerp
MoMarSce: Scenarios of marine population connectivity and adaptation for coastal zone management KU Leuven
Global change measurably influences the evolution of marine populations. We hypothesize that impact varies according to the spatio-temporal distribution of the drivers influencing diversity. To assess the impact we combine existing and new information on connectivity, population size and fitness (life history traits) of marine larvae and juveniles into an existing bio-physical model of flatfish larvae. It will be complemented with an adaptive ...
ICOS - Integrated Carbon Observation System. University of Antwerp
Making (remote) sense of tropical forest structure dynamics across a rainfall and altitudinal gradient Ghent University
Forests absorb 30% of current annual CO2 emissions through photosynthesis and growth, with tropical forests storing the majority of global live biomass in forests. However, due to climate warming, their ability to act as carbon sinks is uncertain, and they could even become carbon sources as trees stressed by climate extremes die and release their carbon back into the ecosystem. Here we will work within a permanent tropical forest plot ...
Assessing critical thresholds of tropical ecosystems integrity using water content estimated from field and microwave remote sensing data KU Leuven
Several ecosystems worldwide are subjected to droughts with certain frequency, and drought stress is a major driver of ecosystem functioning decreases, productivity losses, and disruptions in the carbon balance. Global climate change might aggravate issues related to drought stress, since more frequent and extreme droughts are expected in the future due to changes in the climate, and we still lack knowledge on many aspects of plants and ...
Micropaleontology of PAleogene marine Shelves and correlation with the Terrestrial domain. KU Leuven
This proposal aims at unraveling the links between the evolution and biodiversity of shallow marine ecosystems and climatic developments during the Paleogene through 1) quantitative micropaleontological analyses along depth gradients; 2) generation of geochemical (stable isotopes and elemental geochemistry) paleoclimatic proxy data; 3) evaluation of sedimentological (grain size distribution) and lithological (well-log) data; 4) compilation ...