Kenneth Davidson
PhD Candidate, Terrestrial Ecosystem Science & Technology Group, Environmental and Climate Sciences Department

Brookhaven National Laboratory
Environmental and Climate Sciences Department
Bldg. 490A, Room 11-133
P.O. Box 5000
Upton, NY 11973-5000
(631) 344-3361
(978) 844-1543
kdavidson@bnl.gov
Preferred Gender Pronouns (PGPs): He/His
Ken Davidson is a PhD candidate with the TEST group, and a member of the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University. He is advised by Dr. Shawn Serbin. His research interests include understanding and representing stomatal function in models of plant leaves and canopies. He has participated in both the NGEE-Arctic and Tropics projects, assisting with fieldwork and analysis.
Expertise | Research | Education | Publications
Expertise
Plant Phsyiology, Numerical Modeling, GIS, Forestry
Research Activities
2017 – present: Research Assistant, TEST Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA
2016 – 2017: Field/Lab Assistant, Pacific Islands Ecosystems Research Center, USGS, Hilo, HI, USA
2014 – 2015: Research Field Assistant, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Monteverde, Costa Rica
2013 – 2016: Research Assistant, Gotsch Lab, Franklin and Marshall College
Education
- Ph.D. Candidate, Stony Brook University
- B.S., Franklin & Marshall College, PA
Selected Publications
- Davidson KJ, Lamour J, Rogers A, et al (2023) Short-term variation in leaf-level water use efficiency in a tropical forest. New Phytologist 237:2069–2087. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.18684
- Yang D, Morrison BD, Davidson KJ, et al (2022) Remote sensing from unoccupied aerial systems: Opportunities to enhance Arctic plant ecology in a changing climate. Journal of Ecology 110:2812–2835. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13976
- Davidson KJ, Lamour J, Rogers A, Serbin SP (2022) Late-day measurement of excised branches results in uncertainty in the estimation of two stomatal parameters derived from response curves in Populus deltoides Bartr. × Populus nigra L. Tree Physiology 42:1377–1395. https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpac006
- Lamour J, Davidson KJ, Ely KS, et al (2022) An improved representation of the relationship between photosynthesis and stomatal conductance leads to more stable estimation of conductance parameters and improves the goodness-of-fit across diverse data sets. Global Change Biology 28:3537–3556. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16103
- Li Q, Serbin SP, Lamour J, et al (2022) Implementation and evaluation of the unified stomatal optimization approach in the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES). Geoscientific Model Development 15:4313–4329. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-4313-2022
- Burnett AC, Anderson J, Davidson KJ, Ely KS, Lamour J, Li Q, Morrison BD, Yang D, Rogers A, Serbin SP (2021) A best-practice guide to predicting plant traits from leaf-level hyperspectral data using partial least squares regression. Journal of Experimental Botany 72:6175–6189. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erab295
- Burnett AC, Serbin SP, Lamour J, Anderson J, Davidson KJ, Yang D, Rogers A (2021) Seasonal trends in photosynthesis and leaf traits in scarlet oak. Tree Physiology 41:1413–1424. doi: 10.1093/treephys/tpab015
- Burnett AC, Davidson KJ, Serbin SP, Rogers A (2019) The "one-point method" for estimating maximum carboxylation capacity of photosynthesis: A cautionary tale. Plant, Cell & Environment 42:2472–2481. doi: 10.1111/pce.13574
- Gotsch SG, Davidson K, Murray JG, Duarte VJ, Draguljic D (2017) Vapor pressure deficit predicts epiphyte abundance across an elevational gradient in a tropical montane region. American Journal of Botany 104:1790–1801. doi: 10.3732/ajb.1700247
- Gotsch SG, Nadkarni N, Darby A, Glunk A, Dix M, Davidson K, Dawson TE (2015) Life in the treetops: ecophysiological strategies of canopy epiphytes in a tropical montane cloud forest. Ecological Monographs 85:393–412. doi: 10.1890/14-1076.1

Brookhaven National Laboratory
Environmental and Climate Sciences Department
Bldg. 490A, Room 11-133
P.O. Box 5000
Upton, NY 11973-5000
(631) 344-3361
(978) 844-1543
kdavidson@bnl.gov