Links between C and H2O Cycling in Tropical Transitional Forests of the Southern Amazon Basin

California State University San Marcos Corporation, San Marcos CA

Investigators

Abstract

This research will quantify the links between carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) cycling and determine how these links are altered by variations in climate in an Amazonian tropical forest located within an important climatic transition between tropical savanna and rain forest (i.e., tropical transitional forest). Field measurements will be conducted over a 3-year period that extends and expands on an international collaborative research effort conducted since 1999 with NSF support. Measurements of H2O and CO2 exchange across leaf and whole-forest scales will be coupled with measurements of meteorology to determine how CO2 and H2O cycling is affected by variations in climate. These data will be used to test and run models that will quantify the sensitivity of transitional forest carbon and H2O cycling to climate change. This research advances the understanding of a poorly known tropical system by extending the field measurement campaign to over 7 years, allowing interannual variations in CO2 and H2O cycling processes to be quantified and understood. This research also builds on a strong collaboration between California State University-San Marcos (CSUSM) and the Federal University of Mato Grosso Brazil (UFMT), with a diverse research team made up of ecophysiologists, physicists, biogeochemists, and hydrologists, and initiates an exchange of student experiences and training between CSUSM and UFMT. The student exchange follows an already established exchange between the PI and UFMT collaborators, which resulted in the establishment of a new M.Sc. program in environmental physics at UFMT and several joint-authored publications.