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The seasonality of tropical forest/tree functioning
Short title: Tropical forest/tree functioning
Chairs: Adeline Fayolle, Anais Gorel
Contact: adeline.fayolle@uliege.be
Tropical moist forests form a closed canopy with a complex vertical structure under warm and wet environments, where rainfall is evenly distributed. While tropical forests are relatively uniform in physiognomy, recent data have highlighted cross-continental discrepancies. Tropical forests of south America and south-eastern Asia are extremely diverse, in comparison to the depauperate forests of Africa, which usually stands as the odd-man out of cross-continental comparisons. The lower diversity of Africa demonstrated both at local and regional levels has been related to the evolutionary history of lineages (more extinctions), to the history of disturbances (less stable), and also to the current climatic conditions (drier and more seasonal). In this symposium, we will explore the seasonality of tropical forest/tree functioning, in central Africa, and across the global tropics. We will specifically address the question of how tropical forests/trees cope with seasonal drought, combining various approaches including crown and cambium phenology, stem growth monitoring, functional ecology, tree ecophysiology, and high-resolution remote sensing.
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