Institut für Waldschutz
The Amazon rainforest is one of the most biodiverse areas on earth and is also a huge carbon sink. It therefore plays a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. However, the uptake and release of carbon is spatially very heterogeneous and depends on many factors. The DIFATTO proposal aims to investigate the influence of local heterogeneities (e.g. topography, gradients in soil properties and water availability) on atrributes of the Amazon rainforest in the ATTO project study area. Central research questions concern the responses of tree growth and mortality in the different forest types to extreme weather events such as droughts, but also to storm events. In addition to field measurements (tree growth, biomass balance), modeling and remote sensing data (LiDAR, drones) are combined to obtain a comprehensive picture of current forest functions and to predict long-term effects of climate change and storm damage. The results should contribute to a better understanding of the role of the Amazon rainforest in the global climate system and their vulnerability to extreme weather events.Our work plan is specifically divided into four tasks: (1) Field-based investigation of species-specific growth rates, taking into account competition between trees and water availability in the soil; (2) Recording of demographic parameters of different forest types (growth, regeneration, mortality, species distribution, etc.) through plot-based inventories and calculation of the resulting biomass balance (i.e. biomass gain and loss), especially under the influence of El Niño and Southern Oscillation (ENSO 2023-2024); (3) Description of different forest functions, such as ecosystem productivity, carbon storage and balance for the ATTO study area and temporal projections of forest dynamics using a mechanistic vegetation model, and (4) Data synthesis and utilization of results. Our tasks complement other work packages of the joint project, which include further ecologocial aspects and atmospheric modeling approaches.
Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space
