Richard L. Peters

The 2018 summer drought illustrates that European forests are exposed to increasingly drier and warmer climatic conditions. There is thus a recognizable need for better understanding how different tree species will cope with present and future drying and warming, as these forests are providing essential ecosystem services to society. My main research interest is to unravel the interplay between forests and the Earth’s climate system. I moved from statistical analyses of annual tree-growth patterns in relation to climate, from tropical to temperate forests, to a mechanistic approach of explaining wood formation on finer time scales. This shift convinced me that we need to acquire more insight into physiological mechanisms driving tree hydraulics and growth.