Sohail Akram from Paskitan did his Summer internship at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), Canada 2019

On his words:

"During this summer after completing 1st year of MEDFOR master degree, I have chosen to do an internship under Supervision of Dr. Christian Messier (Canada Research Chair in Forest Resilience to Global Changes) at Center for Forest Research (CFR) part of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). During this 13-weeks placement, I have participated in both Lab work (Data analysis) and field work (forest Inventory).

The main activities that I carried out in following four projects were: 

1. Measuring the Diameter and height of trees in permanent plots (mixed and monospecific plantations) under Project “TRIAD” to study the overall goal of increasing the ecological and economic sustainability of the forest with different management approaches.
2. Data collections from “International Diversity Experiment Network with Trees (IDENT)” to evaluate the role of biodiversity (Species richness and functional diversity) in ecosystem functioning.
3. Measuring the different functional traits of trees (SLA & SRL) to  maximize the economic and social benefits and resilience of tree cover to global change in urban areas under Project “The right tree at the right place - Urban Forest Immunization Kit for Global Change: iFORurb” 
4. Data analysis of different tree-traits to develop a Beta version of a web application that will gather information on climatic, entomological and pathological risks, the geographical distribution of trees at each street level, the value of the services that each tree species produces and the diversity of ecological characteristics of trees that can be planted in Montreal City.

This opportunity empowers me to gain first-hand exposure of theoretically knowledge in the forest field as well as to learn new culture and building up an excellent research network for future study. At the end, I would like to thank Professor Lluis Coll (University of Lleida, Spain) and Professor Jose Antonio Bonet (MEDFOR Coordinator at University of Lleida,Spain) to recommend and organized this internship."

Images above:  Forest Inventory under Project TRIAD at La Tuque, Quebec, Canada

Image above. “IDENT” experiment area in Montreal, Total 19 tree species (Native/Exotic) planted in 216 plots with different Species richness (SR) and Functional diversity (FD) levels. All trees were planted at 50 cm spacing within and between rows.

Images above:  Collection of leaves from Montreal City to measure SLA