As climate change continues to reshape agriculture, one of the biggest challenges we face is how to sustain crop production under increasingly unpredictable conditions. Wheat, which provides around a fifth…Read More >
EEO
A new explanation for how photosynthesis acclimates to warming
For decades, vegetation models have described photosynthesis using temperature response curves derived from the Farquhar model. These curves typically assume that parameters such as Vcmax and Jmax respond to temperature…Read More >
How plants balance water transport and photosynthesis across the globe
Plants face a fundamental coordination problem: how much carbon to invest in water transport tissues to support a given leaf area. Too little sapwood, and water supply limits photosynthesis; too…Read More >
Global assessment of environmental and plant-trait influences on root:shoot biomass ratios
How plants divide their resources between roots and shoots, i.e., the ratio of root to shoot biomass (R:S) is a crucial indicator of how plants adapt to their environments. Root…Read More >
Leaf Nitrogen Declines: What European Forests Reveal About CO₂ Acclimation and Ecosystem Resilience
One of the biological signals emerging from our changing climate is a decline in leaf nitrogen concentrations (LNC) across ecosystems worldwide. For years, this trend has raised concern: Are forests…Read More >
Testing Eco-Evolutionary Theory: How Tropical Forest Traits vary with Dryness
By Huanyuan Zhang-Zheng We have seen many global analyses of plant traits. Admittedly, many of them are intriguing and insightful. However, there is a reoccurring issue evident in most…Read More >
LEMONTREE at the Gordon Research Conference: Modelling CO₂ Assimilation Using EEO
LEMONTREE Principal Investigator Professor Nick Smith was an invited speaker at this year’s Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on CO₂ Assimilation in Plants: From Genome to Biome, held 8–13 June 2025…Read More >
LEMONTREE at EGU 2025: Sharing our work in Eco-Evolutionary Optimality and land surface modelling
Each spring, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly brings together tens of thousands of Earth, planetary, and space scientists in Vienna for a week of exchange, insight, and inspiration….Read More >
A New Universal Model for Predicting Leaf Area Dynamics Across the Globe
Published in Global Change Biology, this new study led by LEMONTREE PhD student Boya Zhou proposes a breakthrough approach to modelling how leaf area changes over time—an essential piece of…Read More >
Optimality mini-symposium at the 8th MMEE conference
The week of the 18th July 2022 was the hottest on record in the UK, a sweltering 40°C. The headlines were filled with climate change and how these extremes will…Read More >
