Project number
26040
Organization
UA Biosphere 2
Offering
ENGR498-F2025-S2026
Trees, in particular topical trees, have a large impact on the global carbon cycling and with increasing climate change we need to understand the feedbacks of natural ecosystems on the global atmosphere. Trees interact with the surrounding air mainly through their leaves, so it is of particular interest for ecosystem ecologists to understand how individual leaves interact with the air in real-time and under conditions we humans do not thrive in.
Researchers have measured leaf gas exchange for many years, either with handheld instruments (slow and not easily repeatable) or with leaf/branch bags or leaf cuvettes. Most of these have a strong impact on the leaf environmental conditions by modifying the light, temperature or humidity. These modifications also impact the leaf functioning and these methods thus do not yield reliable results. Recent development of autonomous small leaf cuvettes that can be 3D printed (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10516825) appears to be a new method that might help ecologists to measure leaf gas exchange with minimal impact on leaves.
Scope: 1) with the sponsors research the current design (connect with the researchers who have developed it) and see how it can be improved upon, 2) evaluate the control requirements for reliable and controllable closure of the cuvette design, 3) design the small autonomous leaf cuvette, the electronic control system, and computer code to control the system 4) build (3D print the cuvette and control electronics box) a proto-type complete with mechanical and electronic diagrams and computer code, 5) test the proto-type in the Biosphere 2 rainforest ecosystem to test the system under realistic environmental conditions; 6) develop the plans to transform the prototype into a system that can be deployed on leaves of multiple species in the Biosphere 2 rainforest, and 7) present the results at design day and potentially at a conference.
The sponsor will supply the instrumentation needed to make gas exchange measurements.
Researchers have measured leaf gas exchange for many years, either with handheld instruments (slow and not easily repeatable) or with leaf/branch bags or leaf cuvettes. Most of these have a strong impact on the leaf environmental conditions by modifying the light, temperature or humidity. These modifications also impact the leaf functioning and these methods thus do not yield reliable results. Recent development of autonomous small leaf cuvettes that can be 3D printed (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10516825) appears to be a new method that might help ecologists to measure leaf gas exchange with minimal impact on leaves.
Scope: 1) with the sponsors research the current design (connect with the researchers who have developed it) and see how it can be improved upon, 2) evaluate the control requirements for reliable and controllable closure of the cuvette design, 3) design the small autonomous leaf cuvette, the electronic control system, and computer code to control the system 4) build (3D print the cuvette and control electronics box) a proto-type complete with mechanical and electronic diagrams and computer code, 5) test the proto-type in the Biosphere 2 rainforest ecosystem to test the system under realistic environmental conditions; 6) develop the plans to transform the prototype into a system that can be deployed on leaves of multiple species in the Biosphere 2 rainforest, and 7) present the results at design day and potentially at a conference.
The sponsor will supply the instrumentation needed to make gas exchange measurements.