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Abstract - Most knowledge regarding the temperature responses of photosynthesis are based on experimental warming in controlled environments, usually on seedling. This is analogous to using a paediatrician for your health instead of a physician. Warming experiments in naturally settings on mature trees are rare due to technological challenges. However, it is important to understand how the responses to warming differ across different environmental and biomes. For example tropical forests have evolved under relatively stable temperature conditions and therefore are thought to particularly sensitive to climate warming. As tropical forests play a large role in the global carbon cycle, any reduction in their productivity due to warming will affect the rate of warming. Few experiments have investigated the effects of warming on large, mature trees to better understand how higher temperatures affect these forests in situ. Here I present some experiments I conducted using a custom-made system I developed during my DECRA to investigate the physiological responses of photosynthesis and respiration to warming in large, mature trees. I will discuss past, current and future research directions investigating temperature effects on mature trees.

Biography  - Kristine Crous is an Associate Professor at Western Sydney University. She graduated with a PhD from the University of Michigan, USA, followed by a postdoc at the Australian National University with Prof. Owen Atkin. She then moved to Western Sydney University for a second postdoc. She was awarded an ARC DECRA in 2016 to investigate how rainforests would cope with warming. Her research focuses on the dynamic responses of plants to their environment, especially with regard to temperature responses of photosynthesis and respiration, including extreme heat events. Her research focus has been on mature trees in natural settings and she has worked in canopies of both temperate and tropical systems to evaluate the warming responses of both rainforests and Eucalyptus trees.