Profile

I started with a degree in Mathematics & Physics and a masters in Modelling in Scotland, before deciding to move into Ecology. Having gained a masters in Conservation Ecology (fieldwork in South Africa, 2002) and a PhD in Plant Science (fieldwork in Panama, 2003-05), I now work trying to apply research and modelling techniques to ecological systems - mostly in the Tropics.

I am working with Prof Yadvinder Malhi, Dr Rob Ewers, Dr Ed Turner and many ABERG collaborators on two main projects:

1. Since July 2010 I have been working on the SAFE Project involving setting up 7 ha of intensive carbon monitoring plots in Sabah, Malaysia (following RAINFOR protocols). See my website for a powerpoint about this.
2. Since August 2008, funded partly by the Microsoft CEES Group, I have been applying the vegetation model JULES in Peru and Brazil and finding ways to make JULES perform better when simulating cloud forests in the Andes.

I am also:

• Collaborating with the FORESTPLOTS network of forest census plots across tropical South America and Africa coordinated by Oliver Phillips at Leeds (I put together the initial version of the RAINFOR map and I've also done some more up-to-date unofficial maps of African sites, Brazilian sites and Peruvian sites)
• Collaborating (peripherally) in the Andes-Amazon model-intercomparison project about savannisation of the Amazon coordinated by Paul Moorcroft at Harvard University
• Collaborating (even more peripherally) with the AMAZONICA project quantifying carbon fluxes in the Amazon coordinated by Manu Gloor at Leeds. In March 2011 I coordinated two sessions Carbon Storage and Fluxes in Forests I & II in the programme of the BES Annual Symposium Forests and Global Change in Cambridge and also gave a talk myself entitled A new network of intensive forest carbon monitoring plots in Sabah, Malaysia: the SAFE project (Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems).

Publications:

• Marthews TR, Malhi Y & Iwata H (2011). Calculating downward longwave radiation under clear and cloudy conditions over a tropical lowland forest site: an evaluation of model schemes for hourly data. Theoretical and Applied Meteorology.
• Sayer EJ, Heard MS, Grant HK, Marthews TR & Tanner EVJ (2011). Soil carbon release enhanced by increased tropical forest litterfall. Nature Climate Change 1:304-307.
• Paine CET, Marthews TR, Vogt DR, Purves D, Rees M, Hector A & Turnbull LA (2011). How to fit nonlinear plant growth models and calculate growth rates: an update for ecologists. Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
• Marthews TR, Mullins CE, Dalling JW & Burslem DFRP (2008c). Burial and secondary dispersal of small seeds in a tropical forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 24:595–605.
• Marthews TR, Burslem DFRP, Phillips RT & Mullins CE (2008b). Modelling Direct Radiation and Canopy Gap Regimes in Tropical Forests. Biotropica 40:676–685.
• Marthews TR, Burslem DFRP, Paton SR, Yangüez F & Mullins CE (2008a). Soil drying in a tropical forest: Three distinct environments controlled by gap size. Ecological Modelling 216:369-384.
• Lawes MJ & Marthews TR (2003). When will rejection of parasite nestlings by hosts of nonevicting avian brood parasites be favored? A misimprinting-equilibrium model. Behavioral Ecology 14:757-770.