The EGU23 General Assembly was held in Vienna from 14-19 April 2023. Located on an island in the magical Danube, the warm and welcoming Austria Center Vienna welcomed the 15,453 attendees from 107 countries around the world. The conference was a great success, as 16,357 presentations were given in 938 different sessions.
TERRAFORM was represented by Christos Chondrogiannis, William Matthaeus and Richard Nair.
Christos Chondrogiannis gave an oral presentation in the session “Co-evolution of life and the Earth, and major transitions in Earth’s biosphere and environment” titled “TERRAFORM: Trait ecology and Biogeochemical cycles in deep time”. He presented the goals of TERRAFORM project, how plants affect the biogeochemical cycles, and how modern trait ecology can be implemented in the fossil record to inform us about plant activity in the deep time.
William Matthaeus had a poster titled “Moisture seasonality as a differential driver of modelled forest distribution during the Pennsylvanian” presenting part of his recent work. Specifically, by using the Paleo-BGC ecosystem process model, he showed simulation evidence supporting the long-held inference that moisture seasonality explains the spatial distribution of the major plant types of the late Paleozoic ice age.
Finally, Richard Nair, presented a poster titled “Day-night root dynamics change through the growing season”, where he showed shifts in the diurnal pattern of root growth during the growing season. Richard, was also a co-convener at the session titled “Vegetation functional responses to global change across multiple methods and scales” and presented during the townhall meeting for the CLEANFOREST EU COST action.
Many participants were interested in the work of the attending TERRAFORM members, with a high level of engagement around the presentations. In addition, the members of the group had the opportunity to attend presentations related to their research interests. At the same time, fruitful discussions and acquaintances with emerging and distinguished scientists took place.
