Dr Tommaso Jucker 
NERC Independent Research Fellow | University of Bristol
Bristol, UNITED KINGDOM
Examining the interplay between humans and forests
Areas of Expertise (9)
Deforestation
Ecosystems
Climate Change
Woodlands
Trees
Forests
Ecology
Environment
Remote Sensing
Biography
Dr Tommaso Jucker is a NERC Independent Research Fellow and Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences, where he leads the Selva Lab. His research explores the processes that shape the structure, diversity and function of the world’s forests, with a view of predicting how these will respond to rapid environmental change and how this in turn will impact society. To tackle these questions, Dr Jucker and his team at Selva Lab use a range of approaches, including manipulative experiments, long-term field observations, and cutting-edge remote sensing and modelling.
Dr Jucker's core projects include exploring how logging and forest degradation associated with oil palm expansion impact the resilience of Borneo’s tropical forests to drought, investigating how forest dynamics shape the 3D structure of the world’s forest canopies, and mapping the distribution of old-growth woodlands in Australia’s iconic Great Western Woodlands to guide their conservation and restoration.
Dr Jucker has published over 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including ones in Science, Nature, PNAS, Ecology Letters and Global Change Biology. In 2020 he was awarded the British Ecological Society’s Founders’ Prize which commemorates the enthusiasm and vision of the Society's founders and is awarded each year to an outstanding early-career ecologist who is starting to make a significant contribution to their field. His research is currently funded by NERC, The Royal Society and The Leverhulme Trust.
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Accomplishments (5)
Australian Academy of Science Travel Award
2017
President’s Prize for best presentation at the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society’s annual conference
2016
Harper Prize, highly commended for best paper by young author in Journal of Ecology
2015
NERC Independent Research Fellowship
2019
British Ecological Society Founders Prize
2020
Education (3)
University of Cambridge: Ph.D., Forest Ecology 2015
Imperial College, London: M.Sc., Ecology, Evolution and Conservation 2010
University of Roma Tor Vergata: B.Sc., Biological Sciences 2009
Affiliations (3)
- Review Editor for Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 2018 to present
- Associate Editor for Journal of Ecology, 2017 to present
- Associate Editor for Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 2017 to present
Links (3)
Media Appearances (1)
Inside the Weird Little World of Microclimates
How Stuff Works online
2020-08-10
Tommaso Jucker is an environmental scientist at the University of Bristol. In an email, Jucker says he'd define the term microclimate as "the suite of climatic conditions (temperature, rainfall, humidity, solar radiation) measured in localized areas, typically near the ground and at spatial scales that are directly relevant to ecological processes."
Articles (5)
Good things take time – diversity effects on tree growth shift from negative to positive during stand development in boreal forests
Journal of Ecology2020 Long‐term grassland biodiversity experiments have shown that diversity effects on productivity tend to strengthen through time, as complementarity among coexisting species increases. But it remains less clear whether this pattern also holds for other ecosystems such as forests, and if so why.
Developing effective management solutions for controlling stinking passionflower (Passiflora foetida) and promoting the recovery of native biodiversity in Northern Australia
Biological Invasions2020 Invasive alien plants pose a growing threat to native biodiversity and are a burden to local livelihoods through their impacts on cultural values, agriculture, farming and tourism. A prime example of this is stinking passionflower (Passiflora foetida), a herbaceous vine that has invaded across the global tropics, including vast tracts of remote northern Australia.
Late-spring frost risk between 1959 and 2017 decreased in North America but increased in Europe and Asia
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences2020 Frost in late spring causes severe ecosystem damage in temperate and boreal regions. We here analyze late-spring frost occurrences between 1959 and 2017 and woody species’ resistance strategies to forecast forest vulnerability under climate change. Leaf-out phenology and leaf-freezing resistance data come from up to 1,500 species cultivated in common gardens.
Historical context, current status and management priorities for introduced Asian house geckos at Ashmore Reef, north-western Australia
BioInvasions Records2020 The Asian house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) shows the largest non-native distribution of any gekkonid and has been introduced to numerous oceanic islands around the world. Since 1990, it has been naturalised at Ashmore Reef, a small group of islands, cays and reef flats in the Timor Sea within the maritime borders of Australia.
Imaging spectroscopy reveals the effects of topography and logging on the leaf chemistry of tropical forest canopy trees
Global Change Biology2020 Logging, pervasive across the lowland tropics, affects millions of hectares of forest, yet its influence on nutrient cycling remains poorly understood. One hypothesis is that logging influences phosphorus (P) cycling, because this scarce nutrient is removed in extracted timber and eroded soil, leading to shifts in ecosystem functioning and community composition.
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