How do extreme weather events (thermal and drought stress) affect tree growth in Canada’s urban forests?  Taking over the project started by Isabella (lab alumni), this is the question that master’s student Meggy Legault is attempting to answer. Over the course of the summer, trees from Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Edmonton were cored, from both park and street trees, for 10 common urban species. The goal is to use dendrochronology to study the resilience of urban forest to climate change, across various cities and climates, over the last 30 years in order to predict how they may fair in the future.

Currently, the lab is analysing all these tree cores using the COFECHA program. Meggy and her lab assistant participated in a training with Dr. Raphael Chavardes at the FERLD (Forêt d'Enseignement et de Recherche du Lac Duparquet) field station in November and are now hard at work processesing all those samples. Results to come soon - stay tuned!