Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/C517484/1
Global environmental change and increasing forest dynamism for he species richness of tropical forests
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Professor T Baker, University of Leeds, Sch of Geography
- Grant held at:
- University of Leeds, Sch of Geography
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Atmospheric
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Global Change
- Biodiversity
- Science Topics:
- Ecosystem Scale Processes
- Population Genetics/Evolution
- Conservation Ecology
- Community Ecology
- Climate & Climate Change
- Abstract:
- Tropical forests are places with an amazingly rich diversity of life with many thousands of different species of plant and animal living together. Compared with the forests of northwest Europe this diversity is astonishing. For example, a single forest plot measuring only a hundred metres square -about the size of a football pitch - in north-western Peru may contain up to 300 different species of tree. In contrast, in the whole of northwest Europe there are only 50 native tree species! Ecologists have been trying to answer the question of just how and why there are so many species of tree in tropical forests for a long time and we are still a long way from finding out the answer. It is this question that my work will consider. One of the mechanisms that ecologists have suggested to explain the how so many types of tree coexist in tropical forests requires us to understand what happens when trees die. When a tree falls, the gap it leaves in the forest provides an opportunity for the seeds, seedlings and saplings of other trees to germinate and grow up to the canopy. If these new trees belong to the same species as the tree that originally died then it makes no difference to the diversity of the forest. If, on the other hand, different species grow up to replace the original tree then this makes the diversity higher in that patch of forest. Surprisingly, no one really knows whether fallen trees are usually replaced by the same, or different species because the situation seems to differ from place to place. Studies at certain sites show that pioneer species, trees that are able to grow quickly with plentiful light, are the most likely species to grow in the gaps. Work at other sites, however, shows that the species that grow in the gaps are the same as the trees that grow in more shaded parts of the forest. I will be studying this process at a range of different sites, in order to understand why we see these different patterns in different places. I will work with scientists and institutions in different parts of the Amazon rain forest, in South America. Despite the threats from deforestation, logging and road building, Amazonia remains awe inspiring: it is the largest continuous block of tropical forest in the world and houses more than half of all species found on the planet. The work will build on research that I have been doing over the last few years as part of a large research team, studying the differences in the structure of the forest between different places, and some of the changes that are happening over time. One of the important findings our research group has made is the discovery that the rate at which trees grow and die has increased over the last 25 years. This pattern may be driven by changes in the atmosphere, such as rising carbon dioxide concentrations , and the climatic changes associated with them. If the forest is increasingly 'living fast and dying young' then the number of treefall gaps must also be increasing. This process in turn might drive changes in the kinds of species that are found in these forests. Understanding what happens when a tree falls over is therefore not only important for understanding why so many species can coexist in the tropical forests now, but also for predicting what might happen to the number of species living there in the future.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/C517484/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Postdoctoral Fellowship
This fellowship award has a total value of £99,574
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Staff | Total - T&S | Total - Other Costs |
|---|---|---|
| £67,174 | £13,400 | £19,000 |
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