Julian Radford-Smith

Canopy Microclimate and Leaf Traits Shape Interspecies Variation in Photosynthetic Temperature Responses of Evergreen Tropical Trees in the Congo Basin

🔗 buff.ly/kfFV1Kw

Geographical and climatic distribution of eucalypts in Australia.

Trait–climate relationships in 454 eucalypt taxa: common garden vs field-derived trends

Britton et al.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/PIIQ56...

Contrasting pathways to tree longevity in gymnosperms and angiosperms - Nature Communications Tree longevity is thought to increase in harsh environments, but global evidence of drivers is lacking. Here, the authors find two different pathways for tree longevity: slow growth in resource limite...

Led by Roel Brienen, our paper in @natcomms.nature.com "Contrasting pathways to tree longevity in gymnosperms and angiosperms" is finally out and formatted.

Other bluesky folks contributing to the paper were @yellowbuckeye.bsky.social and @rmtrr.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pervasive increase in tree mortality across the Australian continent Nature Plants - Eight decades of forest plot monitoring show a pervasive increase in tree mortality across Australia’s forest biomes driven by climate change, jeopardizing their role as...

New research from our group: A pervasive increase in tree mortality across the Australian continent - driven by rising temperatures
rdcu.be/eXSa7

Trait correlations for adults and seedlings

Ontogenetic shifts in wood anatomy & leaf traits in Colombian tropical dry forests

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
by Williams et al.

@peterw-ecol.bsky.social @WileyPlantSci #PlantScience

PhD advert for Genomic and trait-based indicators of restoration success

Exciting PhD opportunity advertised by superstar colleague Prof. Rachael Gallagher "Genomic and trait-based indicators of restoration success" (collaboration with Botanic Gardens of Sydney). See attached image. Contact Rachael directly for more information (email in advert). Closes 30th Nov.

Yesterday we were treated to an inspirational seminar from Dr Laura Williams from @westsyduhie.bsky.social all about the importance of tree diversity, novel ways to quantify it and its consequences for how forests function. Good luck with the richly-deserved DECRA Laura!!! Ping @bmedlyn.bsky.social

Collage showing the bark of Anadenanthera colubrina: on the left, intact bark before fire; on the right, bark surface after exposure to fire, showing charring and structural changes.

🔥🌱 From the upcoming #AJB Special Issue: “Understanding novel #fire regimes using plant trait‐based approaches" 🌱🔥

Toward a functional understanding of novel fire regimes in tropical #forests
By David Pacuk, Peter van der Sleen, Frank Sterck & @masha-vandersande.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2...

Trait‐based island biogeography as a tool for studying future ecological communities Understanding the future of ecological communities under global change is among the most pressing challenges in plant ecology. Islands, with their reduced species diversity and clear boundaries, have...

Thrilled to see my Tansley insight review published in @newphyt.bsky.social!

I provide an overview of recent advances in integrating plant traits into island ecology and highlight key opportunities for future research in island systems.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Just heading back from a quick couple of days in the scrub at Yarraman with a wonderful crew including Dr Bill McDonald.

Take home points for John Dwyer's talk

Temperature niche of two tree species in relation to Brisbane's temperature now and the prediction for 2070. We want street trees to last 50+ years, so they need to be able to cope with future climates. Croton would be better suited in this instance.

Graph showing temperature niche of species best able to cope with Brisbane's future temperatures, with Owenia venosa as the example.

Tuned in yesterday for an impassioned plea and delightful talk by @john-m-dwyer.bsky.social on how dry rainforest trees, including our beloved vine thickets, could be used to revegetate Brisbane's streets in the lead up to the 2032 Olympics.

Lots of neat data on temp. niches!

Some tropical trees cool their leaves to survive the heat — but not all species have ways to cope In full sun, tropical leaves can become much hotter than the surrounding air. Their ability to cope can be a matter of life or death.

Check out our piece in @theconversation.com explaining how intraspecific trait coordination across climatic gradients helps to avoid heat stress in some (but not all) tropical tree species

theconversation.com/some-tropica...

Trajectories of ecology past and future Ecosystems have many different processes going on. Researchers need to select and simplify, and so development of ecology as a discipline has involved finding different possible ways to select and…

A new journal category: Reflections. We're inviting reviews authored by research field leaders to reflect on a topic of their choosing, exploring the history of and provide context for the current state of our discipline. Our first guest is Prof. Mark Westoby #openaccess

🚨New paper out in PNAS🚨

Soil eDNA reflects regionally dominant species rather than local composition of tropical tree communities 🧬🌿🌳🌺🧬

We asked about the spatial scale of biodiversity captured by samples of DNA from tropical soils #Luquillo #eDNA. A short 🧵....

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Amazonian and Andean tree communities are not tracking current climate warming | PNAS Climate change is shifting species distributions, leading to changes in community composition and novel species assemblages worldwide. However, the...

A big congratulations to William Farhan-Rios on this paper in @pnas.org, featuring a study of tropical-forest change over four decades along the Amazon-to-Andes elevational gradient in Bolivia and Peru 🌴 ⛰️ 🌐

@mobotgarden.bsky.social @livingearthcollab.bsky.social

1/3

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Pantropical tree rings show small effects of drought on stem growth Increasing drought pressure under anthropogenic climate change may jeopardize the potential of tropical forests to capture carbon in woody biomass and act as a long-term carbon dioxide sink. To evalua...

How do tropical #trees deal with droughts? The answer is published today in @science.org

Our pantropical #treering analysis revealed 2.5% growth reduction during #drought years. Yet, growth declined by >10% in 1/4 of 500 study sites, and in hotter & drier regions.

doi.org/10.1126/scie...
🌍🍁🌐
(1/4)

Thanks Tim. Hopefully it's an Ooline!

Officially Dr Hoolian! Thanks JD for an incredible PhD and years of mentorship and friendship. It was great to share this experience with someone as obsessed with rainforest as I am. Can't wait for what's next!

Future Climate Shifts for Vegetation on Australia's Coastal Islands Climate warming is likely to be mild for the plants on coastal islands. Although average annual temperatures will increase relative to their current ranges, the hottest annual temperatures will remai....

New lab paper hot off the press in @globalchangebio.bsky.social by David Coleman and @westobymark.bsky.social

Australia’s #islands may offer climate refuges, but ~40% of #plant populations—especially poorly dispersing species—will face hotter conditions beyond their current limits
#ecology #nature

Climate-induced shifts in long-term tropical tree reproductive phenology: insights from species dependent on and independent of biotic pollination Amanda Eburneo Martins, Priscilla de Paula Loiola, Daniel Pareja-Bonija, Leonor Patricia Cerdeira Morellato This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be fo…

📰Published📰 Climate-induced shifts in long-term tropical tree reproductive phenology: insights from species dependent on and independent of biotic pollination🌼

buff.ly/FGwmHDe

🧪🌍

Soils and topography drive large and predictable shifts in canopy dynamics across tropical forest landscapes Tropical forests can vary enormously in their 3D structure and dynamics across surprisingly small spatial scales. However, the drivers that underpin this local-scale variation in forest structure an.....

So proud of Beibei Zhang for leading this paper in @newphyt.bsky.social showing how soils & topography shape variation in canopy dynamics across tropical forest landscapes 🌳🔃🌐

Link to 📃: nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A short 🧵

Leaf habit, maximum height and wood density of tropical woody flora in Africa: Phylogenetic constraints, covariation and responses to seasonal drought

🍃Recent study uncovers how phylogeny and climate shaped drought strategies in tropical African woody plants. It reveals strong phylogenetic signals in leaf habit and advances modeling leaf habit in relation to tree height and wood density🧪🌍
🔍 Article: buff.ly/FxBXjC0
🗞️ Blog: buff.ly/NikXrqs

Drier, more seasonal climates strengthen coordination of hydraulic, leaf economic and reproductive strategies in subtropical forest tree communities Trade-offs relating to resource acquisition and conservation, reproduction and longevity generate considerable trait variation among co-occurring tree species, yet little is known about how the natur...

(2 of 2) We shared the paper previously but here it is again as part of the latest issue:

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Rainforest with buttressed trees, palms and a strangler fig in a shaded understory.

Congratulations to @jradford-smith.bsky.social for making the cover of @ecography.bsky.social with his stunning photo of subtropical #rainforest at Mt Glorious, less than an hour from Brisbane in beautiful Queensland (1 of 2).

Schematic diagram showing the major axes of tree crown architecture

So excited to finally share our new paper charting the global spectrum of tree crown architecture, out today at @natcomms.nature.com ‬🧪🌐

Paper link 🔗: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A brief thread of what we found 🧵

Amazon rainforest adjusts to long-term experimental drought - Nature Ecology & Evolution Drought is a growing issue in tropical rainforests. Here, the authors revisit a long-term rainfall manipulation experiment in the Amazon to show that tree mortality was followed by community-level adj...

#oneforjournalclub

Amazon rainforest adjusts to long-term experimental drought 🌐🧪

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Seed and seedling traits suggest ontogenetic coordination in the functional recruitment niche for dryland restoration species

🌱Are the traits of seeds & seedlings linked? Evidence from multiple dryland species points to strong coordination in some cases – but not others. This could suggest complex, multidimensional variation in the recruitment strategies of co-occurring species 🧪🌏

We have updated our database of funding opportunities for Early-Career Researchers (private foundations, federal, international)

We have 456 entries, for which we provide $ amount, deadline, eligibility criteria, etc.

Download this massive database here for free: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

I had serious FOMO over the long weekend when @lilydun.bsky.social and @jradford-smith.bsky.social headed north to collect more data in scanned forest plots. Thanks to our amazing collaborators ArborMeta for scanning in such awesome places! 🧵 #lidar #TLS #FunctionalTraits #rainforest

Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire‐prone heathland shrubs? We demonstrate that key functional traits undergo shifts in their relationship with growth as plants mature. Therefore, it will be valuable to shift our understanding of plant strategies away from th...

📢 New publication 'Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire-prone heathland #shrubs?' by Lily Dun, Elizabeth Wenk, Daniel Falster, Mark Westoby and Ian Wright in Journal of Ecology 🧪

doi.org/10.1111/1365...