OCTF hybrid seminar followed by Q&A and drinks – all welcome

Trees come in all shapes and sizes – from impossibly tall and slender, to short with wide, flat crowns. However, despite the importance of this variation for shaping the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems, we continue to miss a complete picture of what factors underpin this incredible diversity in tree crown size and form. To overcome this challenge, we compiled a new global database consisting of over 500,000 georeferenced records of individual trees for which stem diameter, height and crown width have been measured. The database brings together measurements from over 60,000 sites spanning all major forested and non-forested biomes and includes records for over 5,000 tree species. As part this talk, I will showcase some of the applications of this database, including exploring what these data can tell us about the roles that climate, competition, functional traits and evolutionary history play in shaping variation in the crown allometries of the world’s trees.

Tommaso Jucker is a NERC Independent Research Fellow and Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol. His research sits at the interface of forest ecology and remote sensing and is broadly focused on understanding the processes that shape the structure and function of the world’s forests. Before joining the University of Bristol, Tommaso did his PhD at University of Cambridge with Prof. David Coomes, after which he worked as a Research Scientist at Australia’s CSIRO.