BIFoR Annual report 2023 / 2023 

The BIFoR Free Air Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) Enrichment (FACE) facility investigates the full spectrum of ecological, physiological, pathological, and biogeochemical responses of a woodland under elevated CO₂, (eCO₂) including: photosynthesis; tree growth; carbon allocation to tissues, defence, and belowground; nutrient acquisition; disease; and food web changes.  

The BIFoR FACE carbon enrichment experiment is now in its seventh year and has continued to out-perform expectations, delivering elevated CO₂ concentrations at, or very near to, the target of +150 ppm above the local ambient. In 2024 we will bring a new, more sustainable supply of CO₂ to the experiment, with thanks to RenEco who recover high purity CO₂ from food waste. Switching to the new supplier has a duel benefit – financial and reducing our carbon footprint.     

Last year we reported that our studies show CO₂ uptake by the dominant oak trees through photosynthesis was increased by 23%, leaf nitrogen increased in line with leaf carbon, and stomatal conductance decreased. This year, another exciting story emerges as we have found that, accelerated conversion of soil nitrogen into forms trees can use, strongly affects how mature temperate forests respond to elevated atmospheric CO₂. Furthermore, this year we found evidence that eCO₂ enhances susceptibility to the biotrophic fungi causing powdery mildew disease. 

Read more about our Climate research. 

Tree health research at BIFoR continues to grow from strength to strength. The team grew by 25%.

Plant-pathogen - interaction and microbiology 
Rob Jackson’s labfocuses on studying bacterial pathogens of trees in the UK and also one overseas territory in St Helena.  The team have been busy with data collection and the 5 PhD students who commenced in 2021 now move towards writing up and publishing.

Megan McDonald’s group focuses on fungal pathogen and symbiont biology. For example, looking at relationships between certain types of fungi and root rot pathogens. Graeme Kettles’ lab
is working towards understanding the molecular mechanisms that underpin oak resistance to fungal and bacterial diseases. They also investigate how fungi and bacteria interact with each other in the oak tree microbiome, and subsequent heath-related consequences. 

Microbial Ecology
James McDonald’s groupfocuses on Acute Oak Decline and microbiomes.  The scale of the research effort is outstanding - 350 trees across 30 sites sampled in the UK.         

Priming / immunity
Estrella Luna Diez’s group focuses on priming in trees – an increased sensitivity to certain stimuli due to prior experience. The team have identified a defence elicitor that enhances resistance to powdery mildew which is not affected by elevated CO2. .  

Plant Physiology
Christine Foyer was named 4th on the list of Best Science and Agronomy Scientists in 2023.
Florian Busch’s group focuses on  fundamental photosynthetic processes and how they acclimate under changing environments. The team investigates CO2 diffusion inside leaves and its impact on photosynthetic carbon uptake.

Read more about our 'Forest Health' research online 

Global Engagement Lead for BIFoR Vincent Gauci, Sami Ullah and Adriane Esquivel Muelbert visited the (nearly completed) Amazon FACE facility and co-organised a successful workshop in Brazil, leading to an active consortium of researchers.     

Adriane will also be co-investigator for a new NERC-NSF funded project to improve the understanding of the drivers and causes of mortality of large tropical trees.         

In November 2023 the University launches the Birmingham Brazil Institute & Chico Mendez Chair.  

Juliano Sarmento Cabral's group focuses on biodiversity dynamics across scales using mechanistic models. Recently developed simulation tools include metabolic models for species distributions dynamics under environmental change. d

Drs Nick Kettridge and Laura Graham continue vital research with a new £2.5m grant IDEAL UK Fire: Towards informed decisions on ecologically adaptive land management for mitigating risk in fire prone landscapes.  

Read more about our Global forest research online. 

Emma Ferranti and Deanne Brettle continue their support to the Trees Design and Action Group (TDAG). The latest TDAG publication in the ’First steps’ series focuses on First Steps in Urban Water.

James Levine was awarded a UK Treescapes fellowship. The aim of the fellowship is to demonstrate the potential of a data-driven approach to the planning of tree planting for quantifiable ecosystem services, and explore how this approach can best be integrated with a community-centred one.

Read more about our Interdisciplinary Research  online. 

Our priorities through academic year 2022/23 are below with a short response in bold:

Reflect and act upon the recommendations from the Vice Chancellor Internal Review Panel – we have implemented several changes, including changes to our BIFoR Board representatives to encourage greater cross college interactions, improved targeting of communications, and development of a proposal for Masters teaching. 

Support early career staff to apply for prestigious research fellowships (e.g., UKRI-FLF, Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust, NERC, BBSRC) to work in BIFoR.- Marine Cambon and James Levine were both awarded Treescapes Fellowships. Alice Gauthey comes to us from EPFL (Switzerland) on a Royal Society Fellowship. 

Establish a hub for global forest dynamics and ecology research incorporating different existing data streams and supporting new field collections and/or investigations A BIFoR Global business case has been developed.

Send at least two ECRs on exchange visits to overseas field and laboratory forest research laboratories to expand the geographic scope and impact of the research of BIFoR Amy Webster visited St Helena Island research Institute; Carolina Mayoral visited University of Bologna, Italy; and Manon Rumeau and Nine Douwes Dekker both visited EucFACE at Western Sydney University.

Secure and/or apply for another large research grant (UKRI) as well as standard grants (UKRI, Leverhulme Trust, Horizon Europe, NSF-UKRI, etc.) incorporating interdisciplinary approaches where possible. In addition to the successful bids listed in appendix 6 we also submitted 19 grant applications of a value greater than +£200,000, and up to £6,250,000. Some examples follow:  UKRI LUNZ Hub – PI Christine Foyer, Building a Greener Future (unsuccessful); ERC Large Grant – PI Rob MacKenzie, CTH20 (submitted November 2023); ERC Advance Grant – PI Sami Ullah, N-FACE (awaiting feedback); NERC Standard Grants – PI Vincent Gauci, DefMet (awaiting feedback); UAE Environment Ministry – PI Stefan Krause, Mangrove FACE (awaiting feedback); LUNZ Research Project – PI Laura Graham, (awaiting feedback) and BBSRC Discovery Fellowship – PI Rosa Sanchez Lucas, chemical priming (unsuccessful)

Provide evidence of equality, inclusivity and culture change for greater scientific coherence – our ‘Trees in Time’ conference had a good balance of speakers in terms of gender and increased number of BAME speakers compared to previous years, the organising committee included two disabled members.

Continue to develop and trial innovative teaching materials for new undergraduate and forest taught masters programs. Additions are being made to the Virtual BIFoR FACE resource including adding in all of the published results so far and creating i) a virtual mangrove ii) a virtual Ruskin Land to highlight the depth and breadth of research at the institute    

Improve upon how we as an Institute measure 'Impact' - setting up the new BIFoR research portal site has increased our understanding of our impact. The image right for example of the information we can now obtain.  

Maximise scientific and wider societal reach of high-quality science outputs Three 2023 papers have been published in journals with Impact Factor ³ 10 

Continue international engagement and presence in scientific conferences and policy forums – BIFoR was well represented at the UK Plant Health Conference. We will lead on 2 special sessions at the IUFRO 2024 conference.

Build stronger links across the colleges within UoB - organise i) Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPS) away day for the Head of School and academics to BIFoR FACE ii) a Chemistry school away day to BIFoR FACE - Senior members of the University have visited BIFoR FACE in 2022/23 including Vice Chancellor Adam Tickell, PVCs Stephen Jarvis, Deborah Longworth and deputy PVC Dominique Moran.

Plan for COP28 engagement via the University of Birmingham-Dubai campus node. BIFoR launched ‘Future Forests’ a set of curriculum linked resources to amplify student voice around climate change. Using the resources, pupils are encouraged to add to a digital woodland, highlighting the causes, effects and solutions to key issues affecting forested landscapes worldwide. Jerry Pritchard has actively engaged schools within Dubai to take part and have their voices heard in the Green Zone at COP28. This feeds into a wider project looking at youth perceptions of sustainability in the UAE  BIFoR will be represented in person at COP28 in the Green Zone.

Promote the science case for potential funding for the continuation of CO2 fumigation at BIFoR FACE beyond a decade. We have submitted a substantial paper to Science and have prepared the science case for ‘where next?’  We are actively seeking philanthropic donations, and UK government support

While continuing our successful efforts across the areas above, our priorities through academic year 2023/24 are:

Develop our interdisciplinary research, targeting large grant opportunities when they arise
Increase the number of research projects at BIFoR FACE to 180 (currently at 131)
Increase the number of FACE-related papers to over 40 (NB the target is 100 and we are at 29)
Increase curation facilities for medium-long term storage of samples taken from FACE and other experiments
Recruit at least one more academic to develop BIFoR-related research
Recruit at least two more PhD students on BIFoR-related projects through UK or international funding
Support the new BIFoR ECR to establish a new research programme related to FACE experiment
Maximise impact at the International Union of Forest Research (IUFRO) World Congress 2024 

Education focussed priorities:
·     Develop the new MSc Forest Protection course for launch in 2025
·     Overcome access barriers, widen participation and provide immersive learning experiences that reflect the breadth and        depth of research at the institute
·     Increase meaningful collaboration between researchers and school pupils