How does global warming affect plants – and thus the important functions and services provided for humans by ecosystems? Prof. Charlotte Grossiord, an ecophysiologist at EPFL/WSL, has been investigating this question throughout her entire scientific career. Her research spans from biodiversity impacts on ecosystem functioning to understanding climate impacts on survival and mortality of trees. Charlotte’s research has made great steps forward in our understanding of plant survival under extreme conditions and on the significance of species interactions in forests.

In her doctorate at INRA-Nancy in France, she explored how tree species diversity affects the water and carbon balance of trees. She focused in particular on the resistance of forests to extreme events. In her PostDoc at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA, Charlotte investigated how forests adapt to the exacerbation of droughts with higher temperature. After a stay at WSL in Birmensdorf from 2018 to 2020, Charlotte joined EPFL in March 2020 where she is leading the WSL Site de Lausanne and the Plant Ecology Research Laboratory PERL.