Dr Gareth K Phoenix, Co-Investigator
Dr Gareth Phoenix is a plant ecologist whose work focuses on the impacts of global change on plants, plant communities and biogeochemical cycling. He uses both field plot manipulation and landscape survey approaches to determine the links between vegetation and C/N cycling, and to determine the impacts of global change drivers including summer warming, winter warming, nutrient enrichment, pollution, precipitation change and UV-B radiation.
He led the “plant scale” work package within the ABACUS consortium (NERC Arctic thematic) in which he used landscape sampling approaches to elucidate relationships between vegetation characteristics (such as LAI) and plant carbon stocks and turnover rates. This work included elucidation of relationships that allow estimates of both above and below-ground plant carbon stocks and turnover from satellite (via NDVI estimates of leaf area). His work also revealed sub-optimal productivity in boundary vegetation between stands that explains a significant proportion of upscaling error in landscape productivity estimates. His recent work on arctic winter demonstrated considerable damage and reductions in productivity from winter warming events in sharp contrast to the “greening of the arctic” that can result from summer warming. He was also co-ordinator of the “MultiArc” EU network exploring the carbon dynamics of plant, soil and freshwater components of the Arctic, within which he researched the impacts of warming on arctic ecosystems using natural landscape gradients and manipulation studies.
Useful links
Web pageContact information
Email: g.phoenix@sheffield.ac.uk
Phone: 0114 222 0082
Twitter: @GarethPhoenix
CYCLOPS
Arctic warming will release greenhouse gases but will also lead to more the growth of vegetation which generally absorbs carbon emissions. We need to understand how those processes interact.
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