How will certain plants cope with climate change? Researchers from the ECOSPHERE research group are investigating this question by studying two types of tropical wetland vegetation: mangrove plants from Guadeloupe and papyrus plants from Uganda.

Ken Schoutens and his team are testing how tropical mangrove plants respond to changing light conditions in the Mesodrome.

As a result of global warming, mangrove vegetation is expected to expand into regions farther from the equator. At higher latitudes, mangroves encounter much stronger seasonal variation in day length and temperature than they do in the tropics. For this experiment, Ken controls both water and air temperature, while some plants are exposed to artificial light during autumn and winter to simulate the longer days they would experience closer to the equator.

In her experiment, Giulia Lodi, supervised by Prof. Jonas Schoelynck, measures how much silicon papyrus plants take up under different conditions. Papyrus plants are key regulators of silicon levels in tropical wetlands, and therefore have a major impact on aquatic ecosystems. In each climate dome of the Ecotron, environmental conditions such as temperature, CO2 and humidity are regulated to simulate a range of future climate scenarios until the end of the century. Thanks to the highly advanced research infrastructure, she can even adjust these conditions remotely while on holiday!