We're putting a forest on a climate-change fast-track
- 28 July 2014 by Adrian Barnett
- Magazine issue 2979. Subscribe and save
- For similar stories, visit the Interviews and Climate Change Topic Guides
An ambitious experiment that exposes a natural woodland to rising carbon dioxide levels will tell us what's in store for the world's trees, says Rob Mackenzie
You head the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research. How will it stand out?
One way it will stand out is a novel experiment called FACE – Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment. It will be the first in the world to take a mature, temperate, broad-leafed woodland ecosystem and, where it stands, expose it to predicted future atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. We will look at the effects of the CO2 on the structure and functioning of the woodland.
With FACE we are responding to a lack of long-term data on the effects of CO2 on woodland. People have been saying we need something like this for a long time.
How long will the experiment last?
The FACE experiment has been on the wish-list of UK scientists for years, but has never been possible at this scale because of funding insecurities. Now we are in the extremely fortunate situation of having received philanthropic funding. This allows us to plan for an experiment lasting at least 10 years. If our results are as significant as we expect, then we should be able to extend the run beyond 10 years.
How far forward will it look?
The CO2 we will be adding corresponds to what we expect to be in the air 75 years from now at current rates of change.
How will you be monitoring the woodland?
We will be using developments in genomics to characterise biodiversity in unprecedented detail. For plant health we have a dedicated lab with the latest biomedical technology. And we will use the latest sensor technology to provide us with never-before-seen levels of detail about how semi-natural woodlands function.
Can't you just do all this in a lab?
You can learn a lot about how plants respond to changing CO2 using greenhouses, plant growth chambers, even cell lines. But in nature 1+1 has a habit of not equalling 2, so you need to take away the walls, the fake growing media, the artificial climate and watch actual nature working. FACE is Gaia science, if you like.
What else will the institute be looking at?
The other topic in the early years is figuring out the microbiology of pathogen threats to plants.
Why focus your research on these things?
We don't think it's possible to understand the true value of woodlands and forests if we are uncertain about how resilient they are to biological and environmental challenges. These threats include things like ash dieback disease and, of course, human-induced climate change.
How vital are experiments like this?
This is part of an emerging experimental array that will do for ecology what the great atom smashers and telescopes have done for physics. Ultimately, we aim to provide fundamental science, social science and cultural research of relevance to forests anywhere in the world.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Fast-forwarding forests"
