NG TAN TING, DIANE

PhD Student

Research Title: Advancing Understanding of Tropical Asia Forest Seasonality through Optimality Theory
Research Group: Tropical Environmental Change (TEC)
Thesis Advisor: Prof. David Taylor
Co-Advisor: Dr Li Hao

My research explores land–atmosphere interactions, with a focus on the responses of ecosystem productivity and vegetation greenness to environmental changes. My doctoral research examines vegetation dynamics in tropical Asian evergreen broadleaved forests by integrating ground-based measurements, eddy covariance observations, camera-based phenological monitoring, and satellite remote sensing, and drawing on eco-evolutionary optimality and plant functional trait theories to improve carbon cycle quantification in this underrepresented region.

My interest in ecosystem carbon cycling began during my undergraduate studies, when I examined soil organic carbon stocks in green belts for my final-year thesis. This interest continued to develop through my graduate training. During my M.Phil., I assessed the photosynthetic performance of newly planted roadside trees by measuring leaf-level gas exchange rates and analysing leaf functional traits — including specific leaf area, concentrations of chlorophyll and nitrogen — to examine resource-use strategies for maximising carbon gain. The observed seasonal differences in photosynthetic capacity strengthened my interest in investigating temporal variations in carbon assimilation and have become central to my PhD research, in which I seek to better understand the seasonality of productivity in tropical forests.