Postdoctoral Fellow
Research interests
My primary research interest is in the area of forest ecology and trace greenhouse gas fluxes within the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and how they are affected by global change processes. My PhD research focused on soil trace greenhouse gas fluxes from tropical rainforests and extensively managed (>20 years old) cacao agroforests in the Congo Basin, and the role of trees as conduits of nitrous oxide and methane fluxes. Here, we used a combination of stable isotope labelling techniques and measurements of soil and meteorological factors to ascertain the source of tree stem trace gas emissions.
My present research work within the CRC 990 EFForTS project involves a comprehensive synthesis of various ecosystem functions in large-scale oil palm plantations in order to assess whether reduced fertilization rates and mechanical weeding can contribute to a more sustainable oil palm production than conventional management, and upscaling of measured soil N2O and CH4 fluxes from plot to the landscape level using two approaches (measure and multiply and landscape segmentation).
