Dr David Bauman
Post Doctoral Researcher
David is a postdoc researcher working on the way climate and soil variability influence tropical tree growth and mortality rates at multiple spatial scales. During his PhD (Université libre de Bruxelles), he focused on the spatial analyses of ecological data, and contributed to the optimization of the statistical performances of
multiscale spatial eigenvector-based analyses and variation partitioning. The overall aim of this research was to address the processes of tree community assembly and species coexistence in spatially-explicit ways. David also studied the impact of fine-scale soil heterogeneity on tree community assembly in African dry woodlands (Miombo).
His interest in forests’ response to changes in their environment brought him to the Ecosystems Lab, to investigate how tree demographic performances, or vital rates (i.e. growth, survival, and recruitment) are influenced by the interplay of species functional traits, climate, topography, and soil, in the tropical rainforests of Australia. This work is part of the ‘Tropical Forests in the Changing Earth System’ project.
Dr Göran Wallin
Honorary Research Associate
Göran is a plant ecophysiologist with interests in the functioning of boreal and tropical forest ecosystems. His research is focused on field manipulative experiments to understand how global change and air pollutants affects forest ecosystems. Another topic is carbon and nutrients dynamics of boreal and tropical montane forest, specifically in northern Scandinavian and Central Africa (Rwanda). Since 2003, he is strongly engaged in capacity building in Rwanda along with establishment of different tropical forest research projects, together with different partners.
Göran’s permanent position is a senior lecturer at University of Gothenburg (UGOT). He is currently a PI in the Rwanda TREE project - a collaboration between UGOT, University of Rwanda and Rwanda Forest Authority to study the effects of changing climate on tropical montane forest trees (www. rwandatree.com) and a PI in the research platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate (BECC) – a strategic research area between UGOT and Lund University. He has also been founding and leading the undergraduate Environmental education programs at UGOT for many years.
Contact: goran.wallin@bioenv.gu.se
Dr Walter Huaraca Huasco
Honorary Research Associate
I’m a tropical plant ecologist interested in understanding forest ecosystems functioning, in particular research topics of biodiversity, above-belowground functional traits, carbon cycle, water cycle, fungi, and ecological restoration along environmental gradients in tropical regions. My PhD was addressed to understand root dynamics and morphological traits in tropical montane and lowland forest ecosystems, where root traits are related to soil and environmental factors.
I was involved and collaborating with Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group (ABERG), Global Ecosystem monitoring network (GEM), Amazon Forest Network Inventory (RAINFOR), The Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) and Past, Present and Future of the Peatlands of the Central Congo Basin project (CongoPeat) networks since 2003, set upping permanent forest plots and experiments to measure carbon cycle in tropical regions.
My current interest is to understand macrofungi ecology and conservation, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi species (AMF) distribution and association to tree species across environmental gradients in tropical regions, and also to explore new research topics.
Contact: walter.huaracahuasco@ouce.ox.ac.uk