Summer at Mpala: plant physiological response to water stress

This summer, Hilary and her intern Kathy joined Drew and Keita in Laikipia, Kenya to collect data on plant physiological response to water stress. Hilary spent her summer recording photosynthesis and transpiration rates of _Acacia mellifera _along a water availability gradient at the Caylor Lab’s eddy covariance-isotope tower at Mpala Research Center. By looking at differences in carbon fixation rate, water loss and leaf hydraulic conductivity of the same species in various stages of water stress, it is possible to gauge the vulnerability of species to drought. Hilary hopes to pair this information with landscape-scale data from the flux tower to better understand and predict patterns in species distribution and abundance.