Subproject

CHAMBASA: challenging attempt to measure biotic attributes along the slope of the Andes

The GEM network aims to capture both ecosystem-level properties and the functional composition of the community.

The GEM team has collected extensive data on the carbon cycle of forests along the Andes to Amazon transect since 2009. The GEM-TRAITs project will focus on the same plots along the elevational transect, with the overall goal to collect primary data on tree functional diversity. This ambitious field campain will result in the first global dataset linking tropical tree diversity to ecosystem function.

We will also work with the world’s most cutting-edge airborne remote sensing technology to explore how functional diversity and ecosystem function scale and vary at landscape scales.

Where are we working?

Bullet_red - Site Bullet_blue - Plot Bullet_yellow - Field station

Photos and images

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Uploaded 6 Feb 2014 by Cécile Girardin. Copyright © 2023.

Congratulations to the GEM team (Chris, Yadvinder & Liana) who co-authored a paper in Nature this week (cover story):

"The paper answers a long-standing question about the net carbon balance of the Amazon forest. It uses aircraft flights throughout the year at four different locations to measure the change in carbon dioxide concentration if air as it passes over the Amazon Basin. The study shows that in wet years and wet seasons the Amazon is a net sink (i.e. absorbs carbon) from the atmosphere, but in dry years and dry seasons it is carbon neutral or a source of carbon. Our main contribution in Oxford was to provide insight from our RAINFOR-GEM intensive monitoring plots across Amazonia, which suggest that the loss of the carbon sink was caused by a reduction in photosynthesis." (Y. Malhi blog, Feb 2014)

Gatti L.V., M. Gloor, J. B. Miller, C. E. Doughty, Y. Malhi, L. G. Domingues, L. S. Basso, A. Martinewski, C. S. C. Correia, V. F. Borges, S. Freitas, R. Braz, L. O. Anderson, H. Rocha, J. Grace, O. L. Phillips & J. Lloyd Drought sensitivity of Amazonian carbon balance revealed by atmospheric measurements, Nature 506, 76–80. Supplementary Info

Download the paper from here: http://is.gd/WZmcSs

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  • Thumb_malhi_pic_forest

    Yadvinder Malhi

    I am Professor of Ecosystem Science at Oxford University.
    I lead the Ecosystems Programme at the Environmental Change Institute, with a focus of understanding the functioning of tropical forests and...

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    Sandra Diaz

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    Norma Salinas

    I am a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Oxford. I am working with plant traits along altitudinal gradients in tropical forests. My research involve many aspects of tropical...

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    Greg Goldsmith

    I am a tropical plant physiological ecologist with a particular interest in plant-water relations. My doctoral research, based at the University of California, Berkeley, focused on the impacts of drought...

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    Gregory Asner

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