Amazon Forest Inventory Network
Field Campaigns 2008
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.
 |
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). |
|
 |
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.
Campaign 2009 - 2010 Campaign 2004 Campaign 2008 Campaign 2003 Campaign 2007 Campaign 2002 Campaign 2006 Campaign 2001 Campaign 2005
