Height does not impair the hydraulic system of the tallest tropical Dipterocarp trees www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... - good to see our #MetabolicScalingTheory predictions we made for scaling of hydraulic resistance and xylem anatomy hold up in some of the tallest trees #allometry #megabiota 🧪🌾🌐

Height does not impair the hydraulic system of the tallest tropical Dipterocarp trees

Half of the aboveground biomass in forests is stored in a disproportionately small number of very tall trees. These giants are predicted to be more vulnerable to drought-induced damage because height ...

science.org

Why do some plants open their stomata at high temperatures? Our new paper shows that this behaviour is optimal, and a crucial thermoregulation strategy. 🍃 However, this only emerges when the leaf energy balance is fully integrated in the optimisation. This is missing from global models at present!

Stomatal Decoupling From Photosynthesis Under High Temperatures Is Consistent With Stomatal Optimisation

Many leaf gas exchange models predict that photosynthesis and stomatal conductance are tightly coupled and respond in parallel to changing environmental conditions. However, experiments show that whe...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Just published this new paper, with a bunch of fantastic colleagues, with many suggestions for "Improving the representation of plant water stress and water use in Earth System Models." Access is free online. We have some great figures, thanks to Victor Leshyk. 🧪🌐🌳🌎

New Phytologist@newphyt.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Improving the representation of plant water stress and water use in Earth System Models Dukes et al. @dukesjeff.bsky.social @changliao.bsky.social @richphillipslab.bsky.social @scottmcadam.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Did climate change contribute to the LA wildfires? Yes "human-induced warming from burning fossil fuels made the peak January Fire Weather Index more intense, with an estimated 6% increase in intensity, and 35% more probable" Barnes et al (2025) www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-chan...

Some 6 years after this paper was conceived, many online workshops, long discussions and a really community effort right to the end, it is now out in @newphyt.bsky.social Of course this talks the talk, but there is a road still to walk :-)

The International Tree Mortality Network@treemortality.bsky.social · 2y ago

Towards a global understanding of tree mortality - out in @newphyt.bsky.social a collaboration between 113 of our members exploring the potential to better understand tree death globally nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

How do leaf carbohydrate dynamics relate to the leaf economic spectrum and what does this mean for modelling the terrestrial biosphere? Find out by reading Asao et al 2024 and the recently published commentary by @docaharper.bsky.social and myself in @newphyt.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/nph....

New insights into the leaf economic spectrum could benefit terrestrial models

Click on the article title to read more.

doi.org