Amazon Forest Inventory Network
Field Campaigns 2005-2009
Acre, Brazil - June - August 2009
Ted Feldpausch and Beto Quesada led a two month field expedition in Acre, Brazil together with RAINFOR-Moore collaborators Marcos Silveira, Jorcely Barroso, Erick Mendoza and Edilson Consuelo to recensus forest plots established in 1995. The research was carried out in the Alto Jurua region in the remote Brazilian-Peruvian frontier and in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve on the border with Bolivia. The first phase conducted by Ted, Jorcely, Edilson and two students from the Federal Univ of Acre-Cruzeiro do Sul campus (UFAC), required travel by canoe for many days to gain access to forest plots last visited in 1995 and 2003. The second phase by Ted, Beto, Erick, Edilson and two students from the UFAC-Rio Branco campus in the RESEX Chico Mendes included the first intensive soil sampling under the RAINFOR-Moore project by Beto to establish baseline soil stocks for the Amazon Basin. Soil sampling included 50 2-m deep soil profiles per plot; this soil work will be replicated across the basin. These plots represent a unique forest composition, bamboo-dominated forest, for the RAINFOR network.
Bolivia - June - August 2009
On the 24th of June a team of 13 people led by Roel Brienen (University of Leeds), Abel Monteagudo (Jardin de Botanica de Missouri, Peru) and Alejandro Murakami (Museo de Historia Natural de Parque Noel Kempff, Bolivia) set off on their adventurous trip to the Parque Noel Kempff Mercado to recensus 10 permanent sample plots. After three days of travelling over dusty roads, the team arrived at the abandoned tourist station “Los Fierros”, where two permanent sample plots of tierra firme forest were remeasured. The team then proceeded to the Huanchaca plateau, a large pre-cambrian rock formation in the park consisting of savannas and small forest islands. The 500 meter climb up to the plateau with food, camping gear and equipment was a real test of endurance, but with rewarding views over the forest below. Work on the plateau included remeasurements of four plots within two different forest islands, including new locations for RAINFOR. After a short rest in a local community the team moved on to plots at Las Londras (2) and Cerro Pelao (2), and finally back to Santa Cruz.
From there Roel, Abel and Alejandro travelled to Riberalta (northern Bolivia) to remeasure a 4-ha plot of the Universidad Autonoma de Beni, which was installed in 1994 and will become part of the RAINFOR-network. Meanwhile, Alexander Germaine (Museo de Historia Natural de Parque Noel Kempff, Bolivia) led a small team to recensus plots in the department of Cochabamba.
Loreto, Iquitos (Peru) - February - March 2009
During a 7 week trip, Roel Brienen (Leeds, UK) and Abel Monteagudo (Jardín Botánico de Missouri, Peru) led a team of six Peruvian and one Puerto Rican student to remeasure plots in north eastern Peru. First, the reserve of Allphuayo-Mishana was visited and 5 RAINFOR plots were remeasured. Then, the team moved to Yanamono and Sucusari to recensus 6 plots, each on different substrates, including one of the oldest plots in the region (since 1983). The last site that was visited is Jenaro Herrera, ca 130 km south of Iquitos. Here, Beto Quesada and Eric joined the team to complete soil sampling of the 3 plots in this site that were only recently added to the RAINFOR dbase. During the fieldwork 2 new plots were sampled. All data will be publicly available soon on the Forest Plots database.
Venezuela - February 2009
In February 2009, Geertje van der Heijden (Leeds, UK), Emilio Vilanova and Pedro Salcedo (both from Universidad de los Andes) remeasured 21 0.25ha plots in Venezuela. They started with 6 plots in the Imataca state in western Venezuela, after which they proceeded to measure two dry forests plots in Clarines in the north. After this long road trip they stayed closer to home and measured 11 plots in the state of Barinas in Eastern Venezuela, located near to two field camps (Caparo and El Caimital) from the Universidad de los Andes and two more plots located in montane forest near Merida. A large number of the remeasured plots have been established by J. Veillon in the 1960's and are consequently, some of the longest running permanent plots included in the RAINFOR database.
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Nouragues (French Guiana) - November 2008
A nine-nation team returned to the Nouragues research site, French Guiana in north eastern Amazonia to recensus 22 1-ha plots established in 1992. Ted Feldpausch (University of Leeds, UK & USA), Lilian Blanc (CIRAD, French Guiana), Jérôme Chave (CNRS, France) and Abel Monteagudo (Jardín Botánico de Missouri, Peru) led the work which now becomes one of the largest publicly available tree inventories in the internet-based Forest Plots database under the RAINFOR-Moore project, with more than 13,000 trees measured during the seven week trip. RAINFOR participants from Brasil, Suriname, UK, Spain, France and Switzerland, including two M.Sc. students and one Ph.D. student, helped to complete the large-scale inventory. The work helps to fill a void in long-term datasets for NE Amazonia and also provides an important contrast to the coastal sites at Paracou, French Guiana, with the two Nouragues sites, the Grand and Petit Plateau, positioned on contrasting weathered granite sandy soils and clayey iron-rich soils. Soil was sampled in 3 of the Grand and 3 of the Petit Plateau plots by RAINFOR team members from INPA, Brazil.
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Brazil, Bolivia, Peru - November - December 2008 Thanks to major new funding from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, a number of RAINFOR and RAINFOR-associated sites were transformed into “Intensive Process” plots. Monthly measurements of all major carbon stocks and fluxes at these locations will now provide an unparalleled level of detail on carbon cycling and allocation over time across the Amazon. With all the training from the Los Amigos and Oxford workshops fresh in their minds, a newly recruited team of “Moore Fellow” successfully installed and refurbished plots across South America. Over November in Brazil, Mauricio da Costa assisted by Prof. Lola da Costa (UFPA, Brazil) and Dan Metcalfe (Oxford, UK) installed the experiments in the two plots of the Caxiuana drought experiment (Cax-03 & Cax-04) as well as nearby clay (Cax-06) and Terra Preta (Cax-08) plots. Much farther south, in the dry southern extremity of the Amazon, Dan Metcalfe then joined Wanderley Rocha da Silva (IPAM, Brazil) to install everything at the a large-scale forest burning experiment (Tan-03 burnt once every 3 years) and a nearby un-disturbed control (Tan-01), run by U.S (WHRC) and Brazilian collaborators. Meanwhile, our man in the western Amazon- Javier Espejo (UNSAAC, Peru)- ably coordinated a burst of activity across the western Amazon. Alejandro Murakami (MHNNKM, Bolivia) led an epic 4-week camping expedition to establish, together with Javier Espejo and Walter Huasco (UNSAAC, Peru), two completely new plots at Kenia, Bolivia. Dan Metcalfe (Oxford, UK) dropped by for a few days to drop off equipment, take some photos and test his jungle hammock! In Peru, a small army led by RAINFOR veterans Javier Espejo, Walter Huasco and Liliana Baca (UNSAAC, Peru) braved landslides and constant drenching fog to install everything at four almost-vertical cloud forest plots along a precipitous altitudinal gradient (3400 – 800m) in collaboration with researchers at Wake Forest University, USA. Finally, Dan Metcalfe joined the ever present Javier Espejo and Walter Huasco, together with Filio Farfan (UNSAAC, Peru) in Tambopata to install a new weather station and incorporate intensive measurements into two of the existing plots there (Tam-06 & Tam-04). |
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Peru - August 2008
In August 2008 a major new phase in the RAINFOR project got underway in Amazonia. Funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is allowing us to significantly expand our effort, measuring more plots in more places and bringing in important new collaborators to the network. We started with our first visit to Los Amigos Biological Station, where we conducted a training course in methods for measuring carbon dynamics. Permanent plots were recensused at Los Amigos, Tambopata, Reserva Amazonica, and in Manu National Park, led by four new postdocs working with RAINFOR (Abel Monteagudo from Peru, Roel Brienen from The Netherlands, Beto Quesada from Brasil and Ted Feldpausch from the USA) and by caipirinha-master Luiz Aragao (Brasil). Invaluable help in organising this ambitious and complex work was provided by Montserrat Garcia-Hernandez, Javier Silva (Peru), and Nigel Pitman (USA and Los Amigos). This region of Peru - Madre de Dios - now includes some of the longest-running permanent plots in the neotropics (up to 29 years of monitoring at Tambopata, and 32 years at Cocha Cashu), giving unique insights into the dynamism and long-term changes of forests in this south-western extent of the vast Amazon. The Moore project will also allow us to expand our inventory and monitoring of soil carbon stocks, and to monitor the carbon dynamics of forests at some key sites at much higher temporal resolution than previously possible. Scientists will gain better understanding of the ultimate controls of forest dynamics and will allow us to better assess the impact of future climate events (such as droughts) and change on the whole system.
Ecuador - 2007
Five years on from the previous major campaign in Ecuador, we remeasured plots across the Oriente during two months of fieldwork in Ecuador. David Neill (Fundacion Jatun Sacha and Missouri Botanical Garden) coordinated many of the arrangements within Ecuador; Nigel Pitman (Duke University), Tony Di Fiore (New York University) and Terry Erwin (Smithsonian Institute) again contributed plot data. A team of Ecuadorian and Peruvian botanists and foresters worked hard in some of the most diverse and dynamic (and therefore challenging!) plots in the RAINFOR network.
Bolivia - July 2006
In July 2006 RAINFOR headed for central Bolivia to re-census plots. Oliver Phillips and Julie Peacock (both from University of Leeds) joined Bolivian botanist Luzmila Arroyo (Museo de Historia Natural in Santa Cruz) and researchers Christian Roth, Daniel Villarroel, Ivan Linneo, Fanor Rojas, Casimiro Mendoza at the experimental station Valle del Sajta which belongs to the Universidad Mayoe de San Simon del Valle Sacta. These plots were set up in 2001 and are tropical moist forest at the southern extreme of Amazonia and represent brand new additions to the network of more than 100 permanent sample plots across Amazonina that are included in RAINFOR. They are exceptionally dynamic and unusually wet forest for that part of the Amazon. Oliver then headed home and the rest of the team recovered breifly in Santa Cruz. The team was joined by Erasmo Alejo and Nino M0iranda for a very long drive to the experimental forest station Elias Meneces which belongs to the Universidad Autonoma Gabriel Rene Moreno, and it is located in the Yacapani municipio, Provincia Ichilo, department of Santa Cruz. Here we recensused two more plots which are also new additions to the RAINFOR network.
Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Brasil, Guyana, French Guyana - 2006
In a co-ordinated effort to assess the impact of the 2005 Amazon drought, we recensused 60 Rainfor plots at numerous sites across the basin. Teams led by many different RAINFOR scientists visited permanent plots, including in normally aseasonal areas which were unusually droughted in 2005 (Zafire, Lorena, Agua Pudre in Colombia) and mainly seasonal areas which suffered months with little or no rain (such as Dois Irmaos and Porongaba in Acre, western Brasil, Cusco Amazonico and Tambopata in south Peru, and Paracou in French Guiana). An effort was also made to remeasure plots in areas that weren't strongly droughted, to provide suitable controls, such as San Carlos de Rio Negro in Venezuela, Allpahuayo and Sucusari in north Peru, and Caxiuana in Para, eastern Brasil).
North Peru - January 2005
2005 saw the return to North Peru and Iquitos, where we started in 2001. Tim Baker, Oliver Phillips, Rodolfo Vasquez Martinez, Nestor Jaramillo and Antonio Pena Cruz from the first expedition were joined by Isau Huamantupa, Jose Luis Marcello, Sandra Patino, Fredy Ramirez, Euridice Honorio, Michael Schwartz, Anne Sota Thomas, Kuo-Jung Chao and Helen Keeling to recensus plots at Allpahayuo, Yanamono and Sucusari, as well as set up new plots at Jenaro Herrera. Additionally, data was collected on tree mortality modes, coarse woody debris and tree crown illumination as part of PhD projects by Kuo-Jung and Helen.
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