A recording of this online seminar is available to view HERE

Speaker:  Associate Professor Lucas Cernusak, Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science, James Cook University, Australia

Tropical rainforests occur on only a small part of the Australian continent, mainly restricted to a narrow humid tropical zone in northeastern Queensland. However, within this relatively small area, a broad range of climatic, topographic, and edaphic conditions exists. Here, Prof Cernusak discusses recent research into the ecophysiology of trees in these rainforests, aimed at gaining insight into how they are likely to respond to climate change.

Lucas Cernusak received his PhD in plant science (The Australian National University, 2004) and is currently an Associate Professor in the Ecology and Zoology group at James Cook University – Cairns. His main research interest is to understand the environmental and biological controls on carbon dioxide and water vapour exchange between plants and the atmosphere. He is also interested in improving the interpretation of stable isotope signals in plant organic material, in order to better understand how plant gas exchange has responded to global climate change through time and how it varies across ecological gradients.