Andries Temme

Hello! I am a PhD student at the sub department of Systems Ecology. Before I came to work at the VU University I did my bachelor in Biology and a master in Environmental Biology specializing in Plant Biology at Utrecht University. During my master internships I studied the population genetics of the Amazonian liverwort Cheilolejeunea rigidula and changes in plant traits that facilitate the success of the invasive plant Jacobaea vulgaris. My interest in plant traits under changing environmental conditions has led me to my current research at Systems Ecology.

Research project

In today’s atmosphere CO₂ concentration is almost 400ppm and IPCC models predict concentrations to rise to 700+ ppm by 2100. However, over the past 20 million years atmospheric CO₂ levels have been much lower than today. Only 17000 years ago CO₂ levels started to rise from 180ppm to the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm. As plants assimilate CO₂ from the atmosphere to grow, much of their evolutionary history has been under poor growth conditions. The response of plants to the predicted high CO₂ of the future is likely constrained by adaptations made to the low CO₂ atmosphere of the past, but this has hardly been studied if at all. Besides, almost nothing is known about how plant traits that affect carbon cycling through assimilation, respiration and litter decomposition functioned in the past.

The goals of my project are:

·         To study the evolution of plant traits that affect carbon cycling.

·         To measure key plant trait responses that play a role in regulating terrestrial carbon cycling rates at past and present levels of atmospheric CO2 and derive their effect on the carbon cycle.

Advisors

Rien Aerts, Hans Cornelissen and Will Cornwell