Terra preta are fascinating black soils found dotted across the Amazon forest. They only cover a small area, but have amazing fertility and are rich in organic compounds - they are often islands of fertility in a sea of general highly infertile and heavily leached tropical forest oxisols. The original terra preta soils are thought to have been created 1-2000 years by pre-Colombian Amazonians through low-heat, smouldering, domestic fires that were used for cooking and heating.
We have just published (in Plant Ecology and Diversity) the first comprehensive description of the carbon cycle on a GEM terra preta, and compare with a nearby forest growing on infertile oxisols. The data were collected over the period 2005-2011, at the Caxiuana National Forest in collaboration with the University of Para (led by Antonio Lola da Costa) and the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi (led by the late Samuel Almeida).

We find that the forest growing on terra preta soil is a bit more productive (but not as much as we expected), and more efficient in turning photosynthate into biomass. Individual trees grow more rapidly, but there are fewer trees in the plot (possibly a legacy of the fact that this is an abandoned agroforest rather than a pristine old-growth forest).

The paper is part of a suite of papers we have published in a special issue of Plant Ecology and Diversity. The papers are slowly appearing online over the next few months. The terra preta site is part of our global intensive forest monitoring network, GEM.

See more info at www.yadvindermalhi.org.

Important Notice Please Read

Could everyone with plots in GEM please check that all plot coordinates are accurate? We are using this data in the GEM database and need the latest values.

How to change a plot coordinate:
Go to Welcome / Post Something / Sites / Plots / Edit. Coordinates are on the right hand side. If you have problems, please mail me.

All the best,
Cécile

Why not visit the GEM Library?

Please have a look at the paper on Conventional tree height–diameter relationships significantly overestimate aboveground carbon stocks in the Central Congo Basin just added to the Library.

Reminder: to visit the library, you login, go to Welcome at the top right corner of your screen and click on Library. It is that easy!

R SUPPORT

Hi,
The fantastic GEM-Peru team are working on R and decided to start a R support group. Please post your R questions here and post answers to the questions you can help with.

Abrazos de Cusco!

Feel free to scan the GEM library and upload any papers you find relevant to the project.

Just uploaded:
Gregory P. Asner, David E. Knapp, Joseph Boardman, Robert O. Green, Ty Kennedy-Bowdoin, Michael Eastwood, Roberta E. Martin, Christopher Anderson, Christopher B. Field, Carnegie Airborne Observatory-2: Increasing science data dimensionality via high-fidelity multi-sensor fusion, Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 124, September 2012, Pages 454-465.

NOTE: Adding the Bibtext when you upload a paper makes the paper searchable in our library. You can easily find the bibtext on the journal page of the paper (just cut and paste the text). Merci!

News Flash:
You can now respond to discussion threads on GEM. Please comment directly on discussions you are interested in (click on ''Add a comment''), or start your own discussion (just post a normal comment and anyone you send it to can respond).

Example:
You can respond to my call for root scans now ;-)

ROOT GROWTH CHARACTERISTICS

Would you like to get involved in a global investigation of root growth characteristics?

Following a recent paper on root productivity and root growth characteristics published on the Andean elevation transect (Girardin et al., in press), I would like to propose a global GEM study on root growth characteristics. This would investigate the patterns of root growth characteristics (i.e. root length, area, specific root length and area), and Root Area Index (RAI) across all GEM plots.

Data gathering & analysis:
Data gathering is quite simple. You just need to scan the roots from 4 Ingrowth Cores (IC) per plot each time you collect the roots. Once the roots are washed (as described in the RAINFOR-GEM manual, p 32), scan them before oven drying them. You can take individual scans of each of the 4 bags collected per IC. Please ensure each scan is labelled with Plot/IC/date/time interval (10-40 min). Please let me know if you if you would need help getting a scanner in your field site.
That’s it. If you could start scanning, I will prepare an R routine to analyse the data and post it on here.

Results & discussion:
Once the scans are analysed using an R routine, we will obtain data on root length growth, root diameter and estimate root surface area growth. We will use this discussion forum to get your insights from all corners of the world. This will help you place your results in the global context.

Please respond to this new discussion thread if you would like to get involved.

Et voilà!
Cécile

You may find this useful. A good quality screenshot of the GEM map: http://is.gd/Kp7dzO

Dear GEM team,

Happy Easter!

Here are this month's news.

GEM-TRAITS campaign in Peru
Norma Salinas, Lisa Bentley and Walter Huaraca Huasco are busily getting ready for the 2013 GEM-TRAITS field campaign. Apart from a few very late nights, everything is going smoothly.

Welcome to GEM
Prof. Greg Asner and Dr. Robin Martin are working with us on the Andes to Amazon transect. In 2011, Greg and Robin flew the Carnegie Airborne Observatory over the JAKARE plots, including Wayquecha, Esperanza, Trocha Union, San Pedro and Tambopata: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yubSH2D64BQ. They will be flying over the GEM-TRAITS plots this summer. We are coordinating our efforts to understand the mechanistic processes behind the carbon cycle along the Kosñipata elevation gradient. You can find more information about Greg and Robin's work on http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/asnerlab/

Website developments
- The new library is now available on GEM. Please visit http://gem.tropicalforests.ox.ac.uk/library. It still needs to be filled, though: you are strongly encouraged to upload any paper you find relevant to the Global Ecosystems Monitoring networks (carbon cycling & leaf traits) over the next few weeks.

- Jo Potts (our web architect) is currently working on a discussion forum and the GEM database.

Please let us know if there are any features you would find useful.

All the best,
the GEM development team.

GEM news flash
Great news! The GEM library is up and running.
You can access it by clicking on "Welcome" (top right).
You can start uploading any papers you find relevant to the GEM project (click "Add files to library" and step by step instructions are provided).
We will be uploading many papers over the next two weeks, so please keep an eye on our new library.

GEM newsletter Feb 2013
New plots
Jhon del aguila pasquel is setting up a series of plots in Peruvian Amazonia: http://gem.tropicalforests.ox.ac.uk/subprojects/carbon-dynamics-of-repres

Dr. Alex Morel and a team from Ghana are setting up over 40 permanent plots in Ethiopia:
http://gem.tropicalforests.ox.ac.uk/sites/bale-mountain-national-pa

Dr. Cécile Girardin is establishing three plots in a palm oil plantation in Indonesia:
http://gem.tropicalforests.ox.ac.uk/subprojects/sumatran-oil-palm-plantat

GEM traits campaign in Peru
2013 holds exciting new adventures for the GEM team, with a large scale field campaing to collect information on forest ecosystems functions and traits along our Peruvian transect (NERC grant). We will continue to monitor our existing plots and we are installing several new plots along the gradient. Norma Salinas will be coordinating the effort, with the help of Walter Huaraca Huasco.

A new European Research Council grant will also allow us to deploy similar campaigns in Africa and Asia in the next few years.

Welcome to GEM
Dr. Lisa Bentley and Dr. Alexander Shenkin, who will both be working on the new Traits campaing in Peru.
Congratulations to Dr. Norma Salinas on her new postdoc.

Website developments
We are happy to announce several new developments on the GEM website for 2013. A new library will be available in the coming weeks. You will be able to upload any papers you find relevant to your study and access all papers relevant to the GEM network. We are working on a discussion forum, so that you can follow and respond to specific discussion threads. Finally, we are working on getting the first set of data from the Andean and Amazonian plots online and publicly accessible (these will be available before June).

Competition
The GEM team will be running a photo competition this year. You will be able to submit photos under several categories (e.g. equipment, plot, humour, landscape, wildlife, etc.) and the results will be openly judged by the public. Please send us ideas on which categories you would like to see in the competition.

COP18
The 37th session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 37) took place last week at COP18. SBSTA 37 spent the first week negotiating a draft agreement aiming to map out a work programme to study the causes of deforestation and degradation and the methodologies for measuring, reporting and verifying (MRV) the emissions of REDD+ activities. REDD+ will be results-based (i.e. payments will be awarded per tonne of net emissions reductions achieved), hence MRV is a key aspect of REDD+ implementation. Several descisions were taken during last week's negotiations, but negotiators could not agree on the final text. The descision text will go onto their next session (SBSTA 38). The draft text is available here.

You can also follow the outcomes of Forest Day 6.

This week in Doha, negotiators within the LCA (Long-term Cooperative Action) track will try to agree on the details for how to implement Phase III of REDD+, i.e. discuss the sources and modalities of financing for verified performance from REDD+.

The Environmental Defense Fund and Ecosystems Marketplace provide a good overview of what to expect for REDD+ from COP18.

Are you following the negotiations? Please don't hesitate to post news on what you find out.

Last week, we hosted a fascinating series of meetings on the latest results from JACARE, RAINFOR, AMAZONICA and TROBIT projects. A flurry of key studies helping to quantify and understand the Amazon carbon balance are emerging from these projects. We will post news from these papers as they are published.

An entrepreneurial approach to research.
Daniel Gurdak, one of our MSc alumni, is seeking funding for his PhD through crowd funding. You can help him by pledging on
http://www.petridish.org/projects/tracking-arapaima-in-pursuit-of-management-and-conservation
He's only got 19 hours left... Good luck Dan!

Dear users,
You can now edit or delete your posts (note: if you delete a post, it deletes everything attached to it). This means we can make mistakes! So don't feel shy and please continue posting your news to projects.
Also: don't forget, if you un-tick the "Public?" box (top right), your message will not appear on the front page. Like this one.

Dear team,
Thank you so much for your great work populating the site.
It is looking really good. Please keep it up, we are launching within the University at the end of next week!
Please make sure you have a profile photo and descriptive text, otherwise, you won't be on the front page.
Also, could you start inviting one or two of your closest field collaborators, we need to introduce it slowly to the teams on the ground.
Merci xCc