Listening to the Forest Breathe

This image was taken from the top of a 31‑metre ecological monitoring tower in the Acadian Research Forest of New Brunswick. Getting here means climbing above the canopy into the wind, where the forest opens like an ocean. From this height, the eddy covariance technique, using a sonic anemometer and an infrared gas analyzer reads tiny, invisible swirls of air to reveal when the forest is taking up carbon through photosynthesis and when it is releasing it back to the sky. That continuous pulse is the foundation of my project. I link this ecosystem‑scale signal to the lives of individual trees by measuring leaf‑level photosynthetic efficiency (chlorophyll fluorescence), and mapping species‑specific patterns with drone‑based multispectral imagery. When light, heat, or drought stress a leaf, that change ripples outward altering the flux measured here above the canopy. Standing on this tower, I am quite literally watching the forest breathe, revealing a quiet truth: forests are living climate machines. Understanding this process is essential for predicting how forests will respond to climate change and their potential to act as long‑term carbon sinks.