Empirical O3 Research

At our primary research site, based on the James Cook University Nguma-bada campus we have established nine Open Top Chambers (OTC) allowing us to grow plants under tropical conditions and a range of O₃ concentrations. By studying the decline in biomass in plants grown under elevated O₃ and incorporating an understanding of leaf-level function we can develop the O₃ dose response functions needed to predict the impacts of observed exposure across the whole tropics. Each of the OTC’s has 9.6 m² of growing area allowing us to experiment on multiple species or cultivars in parallel.