Jérôme Ogée

Jérôme Ogée • Senior Scientist (EcoFun team leader)

Tel: +33(0)55712-2422 • Email: jerome.ogee@inrae.fr

Jérôme received his PhD from Toulouse-3 University (under the supervision of Yves Brunet). He did his postdoctoral work at LSCE (with Philippe Ciais and Philippe Peylin) and joined INRA in October 2003. His research focuses on the response of terrestrial ecosystems to environmental change and extreme climatic events (especially droughts), and on how it impacts the water, CO2 and energy balance at the Earth’s surface.

Research Activities and Expertise

Research Activities ♦ My research focuses on land-atmosphere interactions and particularly on the impact of climate change and extreme climatic events such as droughts or heat waves on the water, CO2 and energy balance at the Earth’s surface.

Tools ♦ For this I use numerical models that describe the physical microclimate within plant canopies and soils (radiation, air temperature and humidity, wind, rain, soil moisture,…) as well as their biological activity (photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, carbon and nitrogen allocation,…). To develop and test some modelling hypotheses, I use several datasets from multi-instrumented field sites from boreal, temperate, tropical and semi-arid regions as well as laboratory experiments conducted in climate-controlled chambers.

Expertise ♦ One of my main expertise is on the use of stable isotope signals (18O/16O, D/H, 13C/12C) from plant material (metabolites, cellulose), atmospheric CO2 and water pools (leaves, xylem, soil, rain,…) as recorders of ecological change and plant function (photosynthesis, stomatal control, water transport, carbon allocation) or as additional constraints on the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and water over lands and their climate feedbacks.

Current Research Themes and Projects

Microclimate and trace gas transfer in plant canopies ♦ I am studying the role of species composition and canopy structure on the microclimate and the transfer of different trace gases (CO2, O3, OCS…) within plant canopies. This is to improve our understanding and predictions of emissions or depositions of trace gases and also better anticipate how forest management influences the microclimate in the canopy and the understory, with the aim to predict better forest regeneration and biodiversity. This theme is central to projects such as the Labex COTE project MicroMic (2016-2019), or the ANR project MaCCMic (2021-2026).

Response and adaptation of forests to drought ♦ I am also conducting studies on the adaptation potentials to climate change of forest ecosystems, particularly in their southern distribution range where drought-induced forest mortality occurs. These studies are conducted as part of informal collaborations or through specific projects such as the Labex COTE project HydroBeech (2017-2019) or the ANR project PHydrauCC (2021-2026).

Developing new tracers of the C cycle (OCS, CO18O) ♦ I have been developing multi-tracer approaches to estimate with better accuracy photosynthetic and respiratory fluxes over continents in order to improve our process understanding of the high inter-annual variability in the CO2 uptake by the terrestrial biosphere. This research has been initiated as part of two projects: the ANR project ORCA (2014-2017) that I coordinate and the ERC project SOLCA (2014-2018) coordinated by Lisa Wingate, and it continues as part of the new ERC project COSMYCA (2020-2026), also coordinated by Lisa Wingate.

Response and adaptation of ecosystems to global change ♦  I have been also developing tools using the carbon (13C/12C) and oxygen (18O/16O, 17O/16O) stable isotope composition of plant cellulose to reconstruct past changes in the photosynthetic activity and transpiration rate of plants, and their associated climate. This still on-going activity was initiated during the ANR project MIST (2007-2011) that I coordinated, and also through informal collaborations with different teams in Europe.

Selected publications (see full list at or )

  • Barbeta, A., Burlett, R., Martín‐Gómez, P., Fréjaville, B., Devert, N., Wingate, L., Domec, J., & Ogée, J. (2022). Evidence for distinct isotopic compositions of sap and tissue water in tree stems: Consequences for plant water source identification. New Phytologist, 233(3), 1121–1132. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17857
  • De Frenne, P., Lenoir, J., Luoto, M., Scheffers, B. R., Zellweger, F., Aalto, J., Ashcroft, M. B., Christiansen, D. M., Decocq, G., De Pauw, K., Govaert, S., Greiser, C., Gril, E., Hampe, A., Jucker, T., Klinges, D. H., Koelemeijer, I. A., Lembrechts, J. J., Marrec, R., … Hylander, K. (2021). Forest microclimates and climate change: Importance, drivers and future research agenda. Global Change Biology, 27(11), 2279–2297. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15569
  • De Lombaerde, E., Vangansbeke, P., Lenoir, J., Van Meerbeek, K., Lembrechts, J., Rodríguez-Sánchez, F., Luoto, M., Scheffers, B., Haesen, S., Aalto, J., Christiansen, D. M., De Pauw, K., Depauw, L., Govaert, S., Greiser, C., Hampe, A., Hylander, K., Klinges, D., Koelemeijer, I., … De Frenne, P. (2022). Maintaining forest cover to enhance temperature buffering under future climate change. Science of The Total Environment, 810, 151338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151338
  • Gimeno, T. E., Saavedra, N., Ogée, J., Medlyn, B. E., & Wingate, L. (2019). A novel optimization approach incorporating non-stomatal limitations predicts stomatal behaviour in species from six plant functional types. Journal of Experimental Botany, 70(5), 1639–1651. https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpv101
  • Hes, G., Vanderkelen, I., Fisher, R. A., Chave, J., Ogée, J., & Davin, E. L. (2024). Projecting future forest microclimate using a land surface model. Environmental Research Letters, 19, 024030. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad1f04
  • Hirl, R. T., Ogée, J., Ostler, U., Schäufele, R., Baca Cabrera, J. C., Zhu, J., Schleip, I., Wingate, L., & Schnyder, H. (2021). Temperature‐sensitive biochemical 18O‐fractionation and humidity‐dependent attenuation factor are needed to predict δ18O of cellulose from leaf water in a grassland ecosystem. The New Phytologist, 229, 3156–3171. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17111
  • Jones, S. P., Kaisermann, A., Ogée, J., Wohl, S., Cheesman, A. W., Cernusak, L. A., & Wingate, L. (2021). Oxygen isotope exchange between water and carbon dioxide in soils is controlled by pH, nitrate and microbial biomass through links to carbonic anhydrase activity. SOIL, 7(1), 145–159. https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-145-2021
  • Ogée, J., Walbott, M., Barbeta, A., Corcket, E., & Brunet, Y. (2024). Decametric-scale buffering of climate extremes in forest understory within a riparian microrefugia: The key role of microtopography. International Journal of Biometeorology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-024-02702-9
  • Preisler, Y., Tatarinov, F., Grünzweig, J. M., Bert, D., Ogée, J., Wingate, L., Rotenberg, E., Rohatyn, S., Her, N., Moshe, I., Klein, T., & Yakir, D. (2019). Mortality versus survival in drought‐affected Aleppo pine forest depends on the extent of rock cover and soil stoniness. Functional Ecology, 33(5), 901–912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2007.09.071