NG TAN TING, DIANE

PhD Student

Research Title: Carbon Flux in a Fragmented Tropical Rainforest in a Highly Urbanized Environment: A Case Study in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve of Change
Research Group: Tropical Environmental Change (TEC)
Thesis Advisor: Dr Remi Luo

My work focuses on the terrestrial ecosystem carbon (C) flux. During my M.Phil. in Geography at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I conducted research on photosynthesis in urban trees. I quantified the magnitude and seasonal variation in photosynthetic traits and explored the leaf economics spectrum of common tree species at the leaf scale. By carrying out soil sampling and analysis, I studied the photosynthetic response of trees to anthropogenic and environmental factors.

For my PhD thesis, I would like to examine the impacts of forest fragmentation on C flux in tropical rainforests. There is a risk that forest degradation (i.e., fragmentation, selective logging, and fire) will drive tropical forests to shift from a net C sink to a C source and jeopardize our climate change mitigation efforts. I will examine the environmental drivers for the variation in plant traits and upscale leaf traits from leaf to ecosystem level to simulate C flux in tropical rainforests by integrating field and remote sensing data into terrestrial biosphere models.