ACCE DTP project: Analysing emergent resilience to heatwaves by dense plant communities

Climate change will result in a higher frequency of heat waves. It is important to develop models to predict the resilience of different kinds of ecosystems to these heat waves, so that we can allocate resources appropriately. This project will investigate the extent to which dense plant communities produce cooler microclimates that make them more resilient to realistic heat waves caused by climate change. It will use both mathematical modelling and experiments to explore how the spatial organisation and composition of plant communities impacts the emergence of these microclimates.

This is a great opportunity for a modelling-oriented ecology/biology student or a student from a mathematics, physics or computer science background who wants to use their skills to understand the impact of climate change on natural and cultivated ecosystems. Some programming (Matlab, R or Python) is essential.

Often in ecological systems, we find that the behaviours of individual organisms produce unexpected emergent properties. Plants respond to their environments by changing the way they grow and develop. We know that they sense and respond to the light frequencies that they are exposed to, as these indicate direct sunlight (UV), shade (red/far-red), and proximity to other plants (blue/green). However, we do not yet know how an individual plant’s response to these light frequency signals will impact the resilience of the entire plant community to heatwaves. The student will have access to plants that have disrupted light frequency sensing pathways, offering them a unique experimental system to identify how a single set of genes impacts the resilience of an entire community to environmental changes. This will give the student access to a rich data set to train and test their spatial models of plant community microclimates.

The ACCE DTP is committed to recruiting future scientists regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation or career pathway to date. We understand that commitment and excellence can be shown in many ways and we have built our recruitment process to reflect this. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly those underrepresented in science, who have curiosity, creativity and a drive to learn new skills.