Amazon Forest Dynamics and Functioning 

Amazon forests are heterogeneous, with attributes varying at temporal and time scales. Forest structure, dynamics and functioning can be specially influenced by climatic conditions, topography and disturbances. This in turn likely affects carbon and water cycling, which have strong importance for the maintenance of the regional and global climate. Our aim is to quantify variations in structure and dynamics, and linking community and environmental data to key forest functions. Our current research focuses on processes operating at local-to-regional scales and influenced by seasonality and extreme weather events.

We combine extensive forest inventories with remote sensing to investigate the role of extreme wind and rain as a disturbance mechanism and their importance as control of carbon and species diversity. With repeated measurements at our windthrow chronosequence (spanning from 4-33 years of disturbance) and old-growth forests in the region of ATTO, we can assess recovery dynamics and related changes in vertical and horizontal structure. These data are also fundamental for investigating species turnover and changes in vital rates. Apart from providing a comprehensive view of the successional mosaic typical of tropical forests, our results are being employed on the parameterization of gap and vegetation models.

With the INVENTA platform (Interação Vento-Árvore na Amazonia), installed in 2019, we integrate field and drone monitoring of canopy disturbances, wind climatology and simultaneous tree responses with self-developed 3D-motion sensors. Our goal is to quantify the ecosystem importance of small-scale disturbances not detectable in large-scale remote sensing, to describe the vulnerability of tree species to extreme wind and rain, and finally to relate modes of tree mortality (i.e. standing dead, snapping and uprooting) to carbon gain and losses. 

You can find this video on YouTube. Click on the image to be redirected there.

Adriana Simonetti Peixoto

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Monitoring gap dynamics and geometry using UAV-based photogrammetry

Monitoring the forest canopy at the Estação Experimental de Silvicultura Tropical (EEST), Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Manaus, Brazil, as part of the INVENTA/ATTO platform led by the MPI-BGC in cooperation with the Laboratório de Manejo Florestal (LMF/INPA).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba9yfEyCWsM

In the new project phase, we will stablish a network of permanent plots covering the topographic and gradient at the footprint of the ATTO towers. Here, we aim at investigating the importance of individual trees and community attributes on regulating forest functions across environmental gradients and with direct feedbacks on carbon and water cycling. Overall, the results of this investigation will contribute to linking processes across scales, and to better mapping forest structure, functions and informing prior estimates of land-atmosphere fluxes in Central Amazon.
 

Team

Team members at MPI-BGC

Dr. Daniel Magnabosco Marra

dmarra@...

ForFunDy Google Scholar Researchgate

MPG Publications

© A. Schroll/BGC

Prof. Susan Trumbore, Ph.D.

Director

+49 3641 57-6110
+49 1609 7262795
+49 3641 57-7110

trumbore@...

B2.003

MPG Publications

External team members