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.