Publications: April – June 2011

Heineman, K.D.,  E. Jensen, A. Shapland, B. Bogenrief, S. Tan, R. Rebarber, S. E. Russo. The effects of belowground resources on aboveground allometric growth in Bornean tree species. Forest Ecology and Management 261 (2011) 1820–1832.
Full text

He, F and S.P. Hubbell. Species-area relationships always overestimate extinction rates from habitat loss. Nature 473 (2011) 368–371.
Full text

Feeley, K. J., S.J. Davies, R. Perez, S. P. Hubbell, and R.B. Foster. Directional changes in the species composition of a tropical forest. Ecology, 92(4), 2011, 871–882.
Full text

McMahon, S. M., Harrison, S. P., Armbruster, W. S., Bartlein, P.J., Beale, C, Edwards, M. E., Kattge, J, Midgley, G,  Morin, X,  and Prentice, I C. Improving assessments of climate-change impacts on global biodiversity. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 2011. Vol. 26, No. 5.
Abstract

Meegaskumbura, M., S. Meegaskumbura, G. Bowatte, K. Manamendra-Arachchi, R. Pethiyagoda, J. Hanken and C.J. Schneider. Taruga (ANURA: RHACOPHORIDAE), a new genus of foam-nesting tree frogs endemic to Sri Lanka. Cey. J. Sci. (Bio. Sci.) 39 (2): 75-94, 2010
Full text

Norghauer, J.M., A. R. Martin, E. E. Mycroft, A. James, S. C. Thomas. Island Invasion by a Threatened Tree Species: Evidence for Natural Enemy Release of Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) on Dominica, Lesser Antilles. PLoS ONE 6(4): e18790.
Full text

Pringle, E.G., R.I. Adams, E. Broadbent, P. E. Busby, C. I. Donatti, E. L. Kurten, K. Renton and R. Dirzo. Distinct Leaf-trait Syndromes of Evergreen and Deciduous Trees in a Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest. 2011. Biotropica 43(3): 299–308.
Abstract

Rahbek, C. and R.K. Colwell. Species loss revisited. Nature 473 (2011) 288–289.
Full text

 

Schnitzer, S.A., J.N. Klironomos, J.  HilleRisLambers, L. L. Kinkel, P. B. Reich, K. Xiao, M. C. Rillig, B.A. Sikes, R.M. Callaway, S. A. Mangan, E.H. van Nes, and M. Scheffer. Soil microbes drive the classic plant diversity–productivity pattern. Ecology, 92(2), 2011, pp. 296–303.
Full text

Uriarte, M., M. Anciaes, M.T.B. da Silva, P. Rubim, E. Johnson, and E.M. Bruna. Disentangling the drivers of reduced long-distance seed dispersal by birds in an experimentally fragmented landscape. Ecology, 92(4), 2011, 924–937.
Abstract

Visser, Marco D., E. Jongejans, M. van Breugel, P. A. Zuidema, Y. Chen, A. Rahman K. and H. de Kroon. Strict mast fruiting for a tropical dipterocarp tree: a demographic cost–benefit analysis of delayed reproduction and seed predation. Journal of Ecology, published online 23 Mar 2011.
Abstract

CTFS-SIGEO Colleagues Work Towards Real-time Automated Monitoring of Forests and Environmental Change

Workshop participants, back row: Ned Friedman (Arnold Arboretum), Jon Chappell (SAO), Carlos Corrada (UPR), Stuart Davies (CTFS-SIGEO), Christopher Thomas (Oregon State), Biff Bermingham (STRI), Cassidy Rankine (UAlberta), Jess Parker (SERC), Matteo Detto (CTFS-SIGEO), Bill Munger (Harvard), Evan DeLucia (UIllinois), Michael Schindlinger (Leslie), Frank Levinson, Rich Camili (WHOI), Larry Madin (WHOI); front row: David Kenfack (CTFS-SIGEO), Lewis Girod (MIT), Erin Kurten (CTFS-AA), Helene Muller-Landau, Lucy Hutyra (BU), Charlie Harvey (MIT), Scott Gallagher (WHOI).

On June 13-14, twenty-three engineers, environmental scientists and ecologists met at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University to discuss the potential for a standardized instrumentation platform for CTFS-SIGEO sites around the world. The proposed instrumentation platform would provide real-time data on tree growth and health, animal sounds and movements, and climatic and other environmental fluctuations. Real-time data of this sort will provide a powerful addition to how CTFS attempts to link fluctuations in physical and environmental conditions with forest change.

Frank Levinson opened the meeting with his vision for developing a forest ecology “tailplate” – a standardized infrastructure that individual investigators could depend on to easily replicate studies across sites.

Participants gave presentations on a wide variety of potential platform components (including meteorological sensors, automated dendrometer bands, eddy flux systems, cameras and hyperspectral sensors, sound recording equipment and associated analysis programs) and the scientific questions these would address. Participants from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) presented on similar instrumentation initiatives for oceanographic measurements, and relevant lessons for developing a terrestrial platform.

There was wide agreement that with recent technological advances, the time is right to develop and deploy such a standardized instrumentation platform for CTFS-SIGEO sites. Standardized, long-term measurements across CTFS-SIGEO sites would enable robust comparisons among sites, quantification of interannual variation, and better detection of any long-term change.

CTFS-SIGEO Program Manager Appointed: Liz Delaney

We are pleased to announce that Liz Delaney has joined the Center for Tropical Forest Science-Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory (CTFS-SIGEO) as Program Manager for the network.

Liz joins CTFS after working at Earthwatch Institute as the Interim Director of Field Centers, and before that as Program Manager for Regional Climate Centers (part of the HSBC Climate Partnership). Before joining Earthwatch, Liz lived for five years in rural Costa Rica where she worked as a science teacher and curriculum developer at a bilingual environmental education center, and has previously worked as an environmental consultant for the EPA. Liz got her Master’s in Science Education from The George Washington University, and her undergraduate degree in Biology from Boston College. Liz is fluent in Spanish and enjoys traveling, running, spending time with her husband and daughter, and the outdoors. She will be based at the CTFS office at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.

Workshop on Plot Taxonomic Comparison in Manaus, Brazil

by Tania Brenes
 

On April 10, 2011, the CTFS Neotropical Program organized the first Workshop on Taxonomic Comparison Among Amazonian CTFS Plots, hosted in Manaus, Brazil. This workshop had the participation of botanists and ecologists from three CTFS plots in the Amazon: the Amacayacu plot in Colombia, the Manaus plot in Brazil, and the Yasuni plot in Ecuador. In the workshop, botanists worked with interns and students on the problem of standardizing a methodology and a philosophy of taxonomic delimitation in these hyper-diverse plots. This work will serve as the basis for a developing collaborative research project on taxonomy between the three scientific groups. 

Workshop participants in the top photo from left to right (institution): Alvaro Perez (4), Juan Sebastian Barreto (5), Alberto Vicentini (1), Ana Carla Gómez (1), Ana Segalin (1), Rolando Pérez (2), Alexandre de Oliviera (3), Dairon Cárdenas (5), Carla Lang (1), Jose Luis Camargo (1), Marcel Caritá (3), Tania Brenes (2), Juliana Vendrami (3), Adriane Pantoja (1). 

Institutions: (1) PDBFF, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Amazonicas; (2) STRI; (3) Universidad de São Paulo; (4) Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador; (5) Instituto de Investigaciones Amazónicas Sinchi.

Botanists discuss complex plant specimens in the field (left) and at the comparative collection at the BDFFP (right).

HSBC Singapore Collaboration with CTFS-NIE Moves to Phase II

HSBC volunteers with CTFS Research Assistant Ngo Kang Min (right).

by Ngo Kang Min

HSBC Singapore volunteers, in collaboration with CTFS and the National Institute of Education (NIE), have completed the first phase of a forest carbon survey.

The project, a long-term study of the accumulation of carbon in forest trees, will continue in 2011 with the second phase moving to the MacRitchie Reservoir, a primary forest adjacent to the secondary forest in which the first phase was conducted.

HSBC Singapore has donated S$45,000 for the second phase of the carbon survey, which will monitor more than 500 trees in the designated plots. HSBC Climate Champions and staff will continue to be engaged in the field, from putting dendrometer bands on trees to collecting leaf samples.

An HSBC volunteer tags a tree.

This project complements the global HSBC Climate Partnership, where dendrometer bands have been installed in more than 10 sites in the CTFS network, including Bukit Timah in Singapore. This study will enable comparisons between the coastal hill forest of Bukit Timah and the lowland forest of MacRitchie. Carbon stock differences in primary and secondary forests at the two sites will also be examined for a better understanding of carbon sequestration in a matrix of multiple forest communities.

BCI 2010 Census Data Online

We are pleased to announce that the data from the 7^th census of the 50-hectare plot on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, are now available. The data can be downloaded at: http://ctfs.arnarb.harvard.edu/webatlas/datasets/bci/.

The 7^th BCI census was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB-0948585 to Stephen Hubbell and the Center for Tropical Forest Science of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Rolando Pérez and Salomón Aguilar led the fieldwork for the recensus. Suzanne Lao coordinated the entry, checking and management of the data. Rick Condit oversaw the implementation of the census.

The massive task of recensusing the plot would not have been possible without the efforts of many people who have worked on the BCI 2010 census as well as prior censuses. Thanks and congratulations to all involved!

For more information, please contact Dr. Richard Condit at conditr@gmail.com

CTFS-SIGEO Forest Dynamics Symposium Talks Released

Symposium participants at STRI, Panama.

On February 22nd, 2011, CTFS-SIGEO hosted a forest research symposium at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. The symposium talks focused on new research directions being addressed by the CTFS network in both tropical and temperate forests. Talks were diverse, spanning mathematical modeling of diversity, life history of trees, DNA bar-coding, herbivory, vertebrates, disease ecology, and land use change projections. The symposium was held in the Tupper auditorium at STRI and was broadcast live on the web. Video recordings of the talks are now available at http://www.stri.si.edu/english/webcast/recent_webcasts.php.