Hi everyone!
Today I wanted to share some awesome research that one of our Ph.D. students, Andy, has been working on!
Andy’s research interests are in plant physiology where he looks at the processes allowing our forests to breathe. And when I say “looks at”, I mean that literally. A lot of Andy’s work uses the satellites orbiting around Earth to visualize how plants are photosynthesizing.
Believe it or not, Andy never actually took a plant class as an undergraduate student at Colby College. Before his work at MFC his interests revolved more around wildlife ecology and land conservation. This type of research involved long field-work days collecting data at fine spatial scales. After completing his Master's degree, Andy decided he wanted to scale up his research interests and make the transition into remote sensing where he can analyze ecological processes at broad spatial scales (i.e. using satellites).
Andy’s story of switching gears into remote sensing parallels the process he goes through during research. Andy’s most recent project focuses on taking field-based observations of photosynthesis and scaling them up to satellite observations. Surprisingly, the nuances of photosynthesis are not well understood, especially in relation to climate change. The goal of this work is to create a more accurate method for observing photosynthesis from space with hopes to gain a deeper understanding of how climate change is impacting this process on a global level.
This type of work is a little more complex than switching up research interests. In order to accurately scale up these observations, you must understand the processes controlling photosynthesis on a photochemical level. Some of the light taken in by plants during photosynthesis is emitted back to the atmosphere in a process called fluorescence. Satellites are able to measure the amount of fluorescence leaving plant canopies. In his recent research, Andy and his colleagues analyzed how to relate that fluorescence to how efficiently plants take up carbon during photosynthesis and furthermore how to use satellites to monitor it. What is amazing about this work is that all the data collection was performed in the field and then used to further understand the complexities of using satellites to monitor photosynthesis.
Andy’s work takes observations from the field and expands them to apply to large global processes. This type of work is extremely important in monitoring the effect of climate change on our terrestrial ecosystems.
