Dr Matthew Robson, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Cumbria, was a keynote speaker in La Torre de las Nubes: a three-day public symposium and exhibition in the convention centre La Caixa in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, October 2025, .
The event covered research into the geology, climate, and ecology of mountain environments with a focus on El Tiede National Park; named after the emblematic volcano on Tenerife.
Matthew spoke in the final session on plant photo-protection in mountain environments; presenting ongoing research he carried out together with students from University of Cumbria in a collaborative project with the Jagellonian University of Krakow in summer 2025 and 2024. The students’ involvement in this project was partially supported by the University of Cumbria Internal Research Fund and Turing funding.
The symposium was broadcast live on YouTube where it remains available and was accompanied by a month-long interactive exhibition showcasing research on Volcano Tiede at the Santa Cruz Convention Centre through displays including video exhibits of projects involving Dr Matthew Robson and his Spanish collaborators on the volcano.
Further, Matthew has two recent publications to share on the effects of UV radiation on plant ecology, photosynthesis, and ecosystem functioning. These papers, produced with his post doctoral researcher Chenxing Su-Zhou and collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, were published in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphy.2025.110863 and in Functional Ecology doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.70251.
Images credit: T. M. Robson