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Speaker:  Jerome Chave, PhD, UPS Toulouse

Allometry determines how tree shape and function scale with size. Allometric relationships help scale processes from individual to global scale, and they constitute a core component of vegetation models. Allometric relationships have been expected to emerge from optimization theory, yet current theory does not suitably predict empirical data. The fusion of high-resolution data, such as airborne laser scanning, with individual-based forest modelling offers insight into how plant size contributes to large scale biogeochemical processes. Jerome will review the challenges in allometric scaling, how they can be tackled by advances in data-model fusion, and how individual-based models can serve as data integrators for dynamic global vegetation models. Next, he will present recent empirical advances on tree allometry, contrasting allocation between tropical and temperate trees, and also broadleaved and conifer trees. Finally, he will reassess the question of how tree volume measurement by terrestrial laser scanning may help improve our knowledge on tree allometry.

Jerome holds a PhD in physics from Orsay University (1999) and a diploma from Ecole Centrale Paris (1995). He is the coordinator of LabEx CEntre for the study of Biodiversity in Amazonia (CEBA); and the scientific director of the CNRS Nouragues Ecological Research Station, French Guiana.