The UB confers an honorary doctorate to ecologist Belinda Medlyn

PRESS RELEASE

News | Research
29/10/2024

On Tuesday 29 October, the University of Barcelona awarded an honorary doctorate to Belinda Medlyn, professor at the University of Western Sydney (Australia) and specialist in the study of vegetation responses to climate change. The ceremony was presided over by the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia. Professor Santiago Sabaté, Director of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and also a member of the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), participated in the institutional ceremony as sponsor.

News | Research
29/10/2024

On Tuesday 29 October, the University of Barcelona awarded an honorary doctorate to Belinda Medlyn, professor at the University of Western Sydney (Australia) and specialist in the study of vegetation responses to climate change. The ceremony was presided over by the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia. Professor Santiago Sabaté, Director of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and also a member of the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), participated in the institutional ceremony as sponsor.

On Tuesday 29 October, the University of Barcelona awarded an honorary doctorate to Belinda Medlyn, professor at the University of Western Sydney (Australia) and specialist in the study of vegetation responses to climate change. The ceremony was presided over by the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia. Professor Santiago Sabaté, Director of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and also a member of the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), participated in the institutional ceremony as sponsor.

The sponsor, Santiago Sabaté, thanked the support of the UB’s Faculty of Biology and, in particular, dean Rosina Gironès, in the proposal of the honorary investiture. In his words, “Belinda Medlyn has stood out as one of the most influential experts in the world for her contribution to a better understanding and modelling vegetation responses to environmental conditions, especially in environmental scenarios arising from climate change. A better understanding of the responses to combinations of these new conditions (increased CO₂, higher temperature, more drought, etc.), as Professor Medlyn has done, is vital to understanding how landscapes are changing. Neither we nor the vegetation are oblivious to the changes”.

For Sabaté, “Medlyn stands out for having shed light on many questions when it comes to anticipating the response of vegetation to so many environmental changes. One of her great milestones has been to offer knowledge on how we can better describe what is happening with mathematical models, but always linking it to the realities measured in multiple experiments, at different scales, and all over the world”.

Sabaté also highlighted the stomatal conductance model deployed by Medlyn, “a mathematically formulated theory that predicts how stomata operate to maximize photosynthesis and minimize water lost through transpiration to achieve optimal water use in gas exchange. These equations have been incorporated into models of growth processes and have been validated in forests around the world”.

Educating the general public through citizen science initiatives is also one of the researcher’s greatest merits. “She was the driving force behind the Dead Tree Detective initiative, which provided Australia-wide information on the health of trees at risk from drought and heatwaves”.

Finally, Sabaté highlighted the honorary doctorate investiture of Medlyn as a recognition of “the wise, but humble and generous leadership of research groups, in which teamwork and positive collaboration are key”. He also recalled the role of the researcher as a reference for women scientists, “an example also for young people, to learn from her way of working, which all of us should make our own”.

Catalonia and Australia: sharing much more than scientific knowledge

In her speech, Belinda Medlyn thanked Professor Sabaté for his generous collaboration in hosting members of her team over the years at the UB. “Although Catalonia and South Australia are half a world apart in physical distance, in climate space they are right next door: both Barcelona and Adelaide have hot, dry Mediterranean climates”, explained Medlyn, one of the most cited researchers according to Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researchers. “For vegetation scientists, that commonality means we have many shared questions and interests: it has formed the basis for valuable scientific exchange, in particular as we share knowledge to tackle the challenges posed by climate warming”, she noted.

On the other hand, Medlyn shared with the audience the difficulties of being a woman and dedicating oneself professionally to scientific activity, recalling that dedication to science should not be the same straight and linear trajectory for everyone

“We sometimes forget that science is at its core a creative endeavour. It requires that we think deeply and imaginatively in a quest for new understanding. To move forward in science, we need people with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, who can bring new ways of looking at the world”, Medlyn said.

Avoiding the loss of women in scientific careers is just one of the unfinished business in the world of science. “It should also be about providing on-ramps, that is enabling people — not just women — to join or re-join the scientific community at different points in their lives”.

Climate change: challenges and challenges for the world of science

Medelyn noted that “forming international research connections like these is fundamentally important to advance scientific knowledge”. She said that this is particularly important in plant physiology, “where comparison across continents helps us understand the general principles of vegetation function and Distribution”. And she added: “In this era of globalization, it ought to be easier than ever to form such connections, but I’m not sure if that is the case”.

Far from the grand challenges of climate change having been solved, “international collaborations in monitoring, understanding and predicting global change impacts on terrestrial ecosystems are needed now more than ever. We need to find ways to strengthen personal, national and international connections, particularly for our young and emerging scientists”.

Medlyn warned of the drastic effects of extreme drought on plant ecosystems. “In Australia, as in Spain, and across the world, there have been increasing reports of forests suffering significant drought-related mortality”. She explained that they have made significant progress in developing “the ability to forecast where and when drought mortality is likely to occur” and that “researchers from Spain and from Australia have been heavily involved in these scientific developments”.

“Global change almost certainly has more surprises in store for us”, she stressed, and added that “one particular area of concern to me is increasing heatwave intensity: extreme heatwaves are about to become increasingly more common”. She noted that we will “certainly suffer through them, but at least we will have ample opportunities to develop our understanding. Our science is definitely not ‘done’ and I look forward to continuing on this journey of discovery”.

During the ceremony, the president of the UB’s Board of Trustees, Joan Corominas, highlighted “Belinda Medlyn’s research excellence regarding one of the great challenges we face as a society”. After thanking the researcher for her scientific contributions to provide solutions to environmental challenges, he also highlighted the values of scientific dissemination and environmental education “as decisive elements in tackling the major challenges arising from climate change”.

Finally, the rector, Joan Guàrdia, highlighted the importance of Medlyn’s scientific work in specific aspects, such as the use of the idea of the model “as a useful mechanism in science to study the complexity of reality”. He also underlined the new honorary doctor’s “willingness to look for simple ways of explaining the complicated, in an enormous exercise of pedagogical will to define and explain her research”. “This structure of understanding science is very close to the UB”, said Guàrdia. “To make scientific knowledge available to all is to contribute to the common good, and this is very important because, unfortunately, this is not always the case”.

Scientific session at the Faculty of Biology

On Wednesday 30 October, from 10:00 to 13:00, the honorary doctor Belinda Medlyn will be one of the participants in the scientific conference “Forests and climate change. Understanding plant responses to help forest management”, which will take place in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Biology.

The session, which is open to the public, will be opened by Rosina Gironès, dean of the Faculty of Biology and coordinator of the Global Sustainability Hub, and Professor Santi Sabaté (UB-CREAF). Medlyn will then give the lecture “Understanding plant responses to changes of environmental conditions”.

Other experts taking part are Jordi Martínez-Vilalta, from CREAF-UAB (“Mediterranean forests and drought”); Víctor Resco de Dios, from the University of Lleida and Agrotecnio (“Drivers of forest fairs and management options”), and Dani Nadal-Sala, from the UB’s Faculty of Biology and CREAF-UB (“Synergies and trade-offs of Forest Ecosystem Services”). At noon, there will be a colloquium moderated by Professor Santi Sabaté with the participation of Belinda Medlyn, Jordi Martínez-Vilalta, Víctor Resco de Dios, Dani Nadal-Sala, Teresa Baiges (Centre de Proprietat Forestal-CPF, Government of Catalonia) and Joan Botey (Consorci Forestal de Catalunya).

 


Multimedia gallery

From left to right, the dean of the Faculty of Biology Rosina Gironès, Belinda Medlyn and Santiago Sabaté.

The expert Santi Sabaté during his speech in the institucional ceremony.

From left to right, the rector Joan Guàrdia, the dean Rosina Gironès, Belinda Medlyn and lecturer Santiago Sabaté.

Flickr

La UB investeix doctora honoris causa l’ecòloga Belinda Medlyn

Ceremony of honorary doctorate to ecologist Belinda Medlyn


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