Seminar Series

Our speakers, Marge and Malini, are visiting from Smith College in Northampton, MA under the guidance of former UNH/EOS post-doc and now Assistant Professor Dr. Jess Gersony.

Investigating drought tolerance and growth in Northeastern U.S. forest trees

Drought events are expected to become more severe and frequent across the Northeast U.S. as a result of human-induced climate change. This talk will cover the progress of an MS thesis ranking drought tolerance of four tree species using physiological mechanisms (i.e. visualizing embolism formation). This thesis also aims to scale leaf-level hydraulic traits to whole-tree growth via tree-ring analyses.

Poly-Stress Responses in Conifers: Seasonal Coordination of dehydration tolerance traits

Globally, coniferous forests persist under multiple environmental stresses, including freezing winters and summer droughts. Yet our understanding of how they physiologically cope with sequential summer drought followed by winter freeze-thaw cycles within the same annual cycle (poly-stress) remains limited. This talk will present results from two complementary studies: (1) a common-garden experiment evaluating coordination between drought tolerance and cold hardiness traits across 12 conifer species, and (2) a year-long field study tracking seasonal physiological responses (ABA dynamics, osmolality, and related traits) in mature trees versus seedlings of four native northeastern conifer species.