Global Change Biology: Heat Stress in Winter

Presented by Prof Marilyn Ball
Ecosystem Dynamics Group

There is an urgent need to understand how vegetation will respond to changes in climate associated with global warming. Vegetation at high latitudes or altitudes is particularly vulnerable, with increasing reports of shifting phenological patterns, such as earlier flowering, consistent with climate warming. Paradoxically, such changes in the timing and duration of the growing season can also increase the vulnerability of plants to freezing damage from early or late season frosts. Similarly, plants that undergo seasonal acclimation to tolerate freezing may become vulnerable to heat stress during warm periods in winter.

We will use state-of-the-art imaging technologies to visualise the development and spread of ice within leaves (infra-red video thermography) and to measure spatial variation in photosynthetic responses to freezing and heat stresses in native plants (chlorophyll a fluorescence characteristics). These technologies are being used in the Ecosystem Dynamics Group to study temperature stress in a wide range of systems, including mosses in Antarctica, grasses in sub-antarctic islands, sub-alpine eucalypt forests, and coastal mangrove forests.

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