Alex Cheesman

New paper out in Ecological Solutions and Evidence on the use of lasers in tropical forest restoration

Thanks to the Wild Country Environmental Fund and Rainforest Rescue for supporting the work

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Some tropical trees cool their leaves to survive the heat — but not all species have ways to cope In full sun, tropical leaves can become much hotter than the surrounding air. Their ability to cope can be a matter of life or death.

Check out our piece in @theconversation.com explaining how intraspecific trait coordination across climatic gradients helps to avoid heat stress in some (but not all) tropical tree species

theconversation.com/some-tropica...

Featured on the cover of @globalchangebio.bsky.social is a thermal image of Elaeocarpus Grandis taken at @jcuofficial.bsky.social Daintree Rainforest Observatory. In this species we find that populations originating from warmer climates have narrower leaves with higher rates of water loss.

Local Adaptation Drives Leaf Thermoregulation in Tropical Rainforest Trees We tested whether tropical rainforest trees adjust their leaf traits and resulting leaf temperatures across their distributions within the Australian Wet Tropics. Using field measurements from across...

Can tropical rainforest trees keep their cool? Now out in @globalchangebio.bsky.social we explored whether intraspecific variation in leaf energy balance was a result of adaptation to local climate.
doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

Heading to Oaxaca for #ATBC2025 ? Make sure you stop by our symposium for all things leaf temperature, heat tolerance, and tradeoffs across climate gradients 🌿💧🌡️

Rainforest Resecue's Forest Lodge Pyengana property in NE Tasmania