Combining landscape, plant, and rhizosphere research helps to resolve the role of plants in stabilizing the soil carbon pool, and helps future-proofs and ensures natural and artificial environments are a mitigation tool against climate change.
Physiological models require detailed information on plant biophysical and biochemical properties, meshed with mapping of spatial heterogeneities in abiotic regulators. Our research relies on and develops novel remote sensing research hardware (UAV) and software (deep-learning) that enhance the information content derived from imagery.
As plant leaves and roots are tightly connected, with neither part outgrowing the other, non-destructive imaging techniques offer deeper insights into this relationship and its plasticity. Our research strengthens linkages between above and belowground vegetation to understand carbon deposition, and the role of plants in stimulating emissions.
Plant roots mediate the coupling between photosynthesis and the soil microbial community, yet carbon cycling depends upon a spatial-temporal dynamic interface and deposition rates, governed by the above/belowground abiotic environment. Competition between roots and soil microbes for shared resource pools is hypothesized to vary along nutrient and species gradients, yet there is a paucity of empirical research in this area.
Given our research goals, team members are well versed in computer programming for modelling, simulation and statistical analysis. Our group exploits computers to enhance the breadth and statistical power of our work. Our data driven approach utilizes or has designed a number of model which we envision to continue to develop.
Root Physiology
Radiative Transfer Modelling
Tracing Root Traits