Modelling forest disease and its carbon budget

Summary Description:

The world’s forests have been experiencing a dramatic increase in emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), posing threats to biodiversity and productivity. However, the mechanism of how forest pathogens affect tree mortality and the carbon budget is unclear. In this DPhil project I aim to develop a general model that can be used to predict tree mortality rates and carbon dynamics driven by forest pests and pathogens by coupling epidemiological and biophysical processes. Beginning with a prevalent disease (ash dieback), this project will model the net ecosystem exchange, with its parameters calibrated using data from Wytham Woods alongside data from 80 peer reviewed papers across Europe. Then, the project will expand to other major forest pests and pathogens for developing a general EID-driven global dynamic vegetation model (DGVM), with calibration data collected from population and biogeochemical surveys. This project will advance our understanding of tree diseases as drivers of tree mortality rates and carbon dynamics as well as provide easy-to-use tools that will enable landowners to better forecast tree mortality and carbon storage on their land.