The Environmental Modelling group led by Prof. Marcello Vitale is currently located at the Department of Environmental Biology at Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). In the group, the causal relationships between functional processes of plants and environmental factors at different spatial and temporal scales are studied. These features contemplate the use of experimental field approaches and theoretical analyses based on general systems theory, allometric theory, exergetic thermodynamics, and empirical- and process-based models.