PeopleGlobal PartnersF. Ian Woodward

F. Ian Woodward

Working in: Sheffield, England

Position:
Professor of Plant Ecology and Deputy Director NERC Centre for Terrestrial Carbon

Regions of Interest:
Global

Research:
There are two strands to my research activities. One strand is concerned with an experimental approach to understanding the mechanisms controlling plant developmental responses to environmental changes. Of particular interest is the impact of changes in carbon dioxide concentration on stomatal development. This process has relevance to reconstructing past concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil data on stomatal density, and has also provided the first evidence of a direct response of plants to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since the industrial revolution. Our current research is investigating the mechanisms by which plants detect carbon dioxide concentration and then signal an appropriate response in developing leaves. The theme of studying the impacts of environmental changes on plants underlies my other research strand, which is concerned with investigating the responses of vegetation, at the global scale, to changes in climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. The approach is achieved primarily through modelling and data analysis and has been applied to past, present and future environments, as shown in a recent book entitled Vegetation and the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: Modelling the first 400 million years.

Professor Woodward has accumulated over 30 years of experience in research and teaching on botany and ecology. In addition to the positions indicated above he has also been a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Botany, University of Innsbruck, Austria (1984) and a Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria (1989). He serves on the editorial boards of the following journals Climatic Change, Global Change Biology, Tree Physiology and Journal of Biogeography and is the Editor-In-Chief of New Phytologist. Professor Woodward has been principal investigator on grants from the UK agencies NERC and BBSRC and from the European Union and has acted as a scientific assessor for national and international (DoE, NSF, EU and SILMU (Finland) grant agencies. He is currently a member of the NERC peer review college. Over the last ten years he has also been actively involved in the activities of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) being a member of Co-ordinating panel 4 (CP4), Ecosystems (1987-1990), an activity leader on the Scientific Steering Committee for Core Project Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) (1990-1996) and a member of the Task Force for Global Analysis, Interpretation and Modelling (GAIM) (1992-1997). He has also been an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)(1989-1990). He is the author of over 200 publications, including 4 books.

Contact:
Department of Animal & Plant Sciences,
University of Sheffield,
Sheffield, S10 2TN,
UK

Tel: + 44 (0)114 2224647
Fax: + 44 (0)114 2220002
Email: F.I.Woodward@Sheffield.ac.uk
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