"Ecophysiology is the study of how the environment, both physical and biological, interacts with the physiology of an organism. It includes the effects of climate and nutrients on physiological processes in both plants and animals, and has a particular focus on how physiological processes scale with organism size" (Nature, https://www.nature.com/subjects/ecophysiology. Accessed 2019-06-13).

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I am particularly interested in understanding the drivers controlling the dormancy-growth cycle of temperate and boreal trees, through the observation of budburst (leaf-unfolding) in spring and bud set (leaf-fall) in autumn. These processes must be synchronized with the seasonal variations in air temperature otherwise trees would expose their organs to frost events. These processes are conventionally analyzed using aggregated temperature metrics that do not consider extreme climatic events that can more heavily affect trees. I tested the hypothesis that budburst was in greater synchrony with the decrease in frost frequency than with the increase in mean air temperature. I also analyzed the drivers of the various observable phases of the bud break process (see pictures below) to determine if sensitivity to air temperature and photoperiod varied at each phase of the bud break process. These findings are important because the right choice of species and seed source has to be made when establishing plantations otherwise trees will either grow poorly or die. This choice has to be based on the physiological properties of the species or seed source, if known. Therefore, this type of specific knowledge proves important to acquire for sustainable forest management.

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The technological advances in remote sensing and the use of drones will facilitate the acquisition of this type of data otherwise tedious to collect. This innovative field of research is specifically exciting and will allow the development of new large database covering impressive spatial scales which should lead to important new discoveries in plant science!