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Natural Environment Research Council
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Details of Award

NERC Reference : NE/B503384/1

Accelerated tree growth in Amazonia: ecological changes and environmental drivers.

Grant Award

Principal Investigator:
Professor OL Phillips, University of Leeds, Sch of Geography
Co-Investigator:
Professor YS Malhi, University of Oxford, Geography - SoGE
Science Area:
Terrestrial
Atmospheric
Overall Classification:
Terrestrial
ENRIs:
Global Change
Biodiversity
Science Topics:
Ecosystem Scale Processes
Survey & Monitoring
Community Ecology
Climate & Climate Change
Abstract:
Our overall goal is to explore how the world's largest tropical forest, Amazonia, is faring in an era of rapid atmospheric change. Already there are reports of ecological change in mature forests, with increasing biomass, growth, and dynamics, but it is unclear what factor is accelerating tree growth and what the impacts have been on biodiversity (the species) and on ecosystem functions (such as carbon storage). These structural and ecological changes, combined with the known sensitivity of tropical forest composition to climatic change in the Pleistocene and Holocene, suggest that it is inevitable that tropical forest composition will change in response to atmospheric change, as particular species are favoured by higher carbon dioxide, changing climate, and changing dynamics. Much greater scientific effort is warranted in understanding this complex and emerging threat, both in terms of the focus of theoretical and modelling effort, and in the monitoring of tropical biodiversity changes on the ground. This project will bring together sufficient intellectual and physical resources to enable scientists, for the first time, to assess the nature and extent of compositional change in the world's largest tropical forest, and to reveal the likely mechanism(s) behind this change. 13 of the world's leading tropical ecologists will contribute the accumulated data and experience of 25 years of monitoring forest plots across the Amazon, and access to unique sources of Amazon plant ecology in our quest to discover and explain biodiversity changes.
Period of Award:
1 Oct 2004 - 30 Jun 2008
Value:
£214,415 Lead Split Award
Authorised funds only
NERC Reference:
NE/B503384/1
Grant Stage:
Completed
Scheme:
Standard Grants Pre FEC
Grant Status:
Closed
Programme:
Standard Grant

This grant award has a total value of £214,415  

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FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)

Total - T&STotal - StaffTotal - Other CostsTotal - Indirect Costs
£57,655£102,243£7,486£47,032

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