Ceremony Opens PNG Research Station

On 24 May 2010, CTFS joined partners to celebrate the opening of the Swire Research Station, which supports field activities related to the 50-ha CTFS plot underway in Wanang, Papua New Guinea.

Bill Rothery, Chairman of John Swire & Sons Pty Steamships, which has contributed USD 250,000 to the project, participated in the celebration along with partners from the New Guinea Binatang Research Center, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Minnesota, and PNG officials.

Download clippings of local PNG newspaper coverage of the event.

Planting Trees to Celebrate World Environment Day 2010

by Jefferson Hall

The headlines are not good. A massive oil spill continues to foul the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and negotiations to curb the increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are in disarray. However, on World Environment Day 2010, we remembered the old environmental movement call to action “Think Globally, Act Locally.”

Photo: HSBC volunteers in Panama joined STRI and the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) on World Environment Day (5 June) to plant 2,500 trees over 2 hectares of land in Soberania National Park, Panama. HSBC-Panama CEO Ernesto Fernandes (center) and Arturo Cerezo (green shirt) from ACP were among the volunteers. Photo by Gian Montufar, STRI.

Despite the headlines and daunting environmental challenges the world faces, we need to remember that global action to address environmental problems starts with individuals and local groups. So on World Environment Day, we chose to do our part for the environment by planting trees. Our partners in the effort were 125 HSBC Bank employees in Panama.

As part of the Agua Salud Project—an ecosystem services research partnership between the Panama Canal Authority, the National Environmental Authority of Panama, HSBC Bank, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)—we enjoyed a day outdoors, doing something positive for the environment. To help control the spread of aggressive invasive canal grass (Saccharum spontaneum) and restore tropical forest within the boundaries of Soberania National Park, we planted 2,500 trees of native species over 2 hectares of land.

Will it work? No one can tell for sure, but in a six-year-old forest planted by STRI’s PRORENA project, we’ve seen the return of countless species of birds, species of primates, and even footprints of a very large cat believed to be a Jaguar—none of which would be there without the forest.

Coordinator of Neotropical Program Appointed: Dr. Tania Brenes Arguedas

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Tania Brenes Arguedas has joined the Center for Tropical Forest Science-Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory (CTFS-SIGEO) to coordinate research and training activities for the Neotropical Program.

Tania joins CTFS-SIGEO following a post-doctoral fellowship at STRI, where she investigated the effects of herbivores, pathogens, drought, and light on tree distributions across the Isthmus of Panama. Tania is originally from Costa Rica. She did her BSc degree at the University of Costa Rica and her PhD at the University of Utah, where she focused on the role of biotic and abiotic factors in shaping the defensive adaptations of the genus Inga.

Tania's experience working in Latin America and studying neotropical forests will help enhance the expanding CTFS-SIGEO program in the region. She is based at the CTFS-SIGEO office in Panama.

HIPPNET: CTFS Partner in Hawai‘i

In a recent article for UCLA’s Center for Tropical Research, Lawren Sack describes the establishment of the Hawai‘i Permanent Plot Network (HIPPNET) and discusses the kinds of critical forest research the project facilitates.

Click here to read Lawren's article and learn about the important work that CTFS partners are doing in Hawai‘i.

Photo by Susan Cordell: Metrosideros polymorpha, Laupahoehoe.

Photo by Susan Cordell: Diospyros sandwicensism, Palamanui.

Harvard Symposium Focuses on Trees and the Global Environment

Last week, the 6th Annual Harvard Plant Biology Symposium drew a crowd of several hundred people to hear (in Cambridge and via the Web) a multidisciplinary group of researchers present some of today’s most advanced science and social science related to trees and the global environment.

The symposium was co-organized and hosted by the Harvard University Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and CTFS-Arnold Arboretum with support from the HSBC Climate Partnership. See Alvin Powell’s article in the Harvard Gazette for a summary of the symposium. Videos of the talks are available online for viewing at http://arboretum.harvard.edu/research/pbi.html.

CTFS-Arnold Arboretum Co-Hosts 6th Annual Harvard Plant Biology Symposium on 29-30 April

Harvard University's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) in partnership with the CTFS-Arnold Arboretum Program will host the 6th Annual Harvard Plant Biology Symposium. This year’s theme is "Trees and the Global Environment.” The symposium is supported by CTFS-AA, OEB, and the HSBC Climate Partnership.

Live Webcast of Harvard PBI Symposium: 29 & 30 April

Speakers represent both empirical and modeling/theory perspectives and come from diverse disciplines in plant science and resource economics. Presentations will range from the functional responses of individual trees to changing environmental conditions all the way up to ecosystem and landscape-scale responses. Poster presentations will showcase important research being done on plants at the Arnold Arboretum and at Harvard more broadly. For more information, visit: http://www.pbi.fas.harvard.edu/events.htm.

Program: Trees and the Global Environment

THUR, 29 APRIL

Eva Pell, Smithsonian Institution
Introductory Comments

Stephen Pacala, Princeton University
Scaling from physiology to the globe in models of forest dynamics

Deborah Clark, University of Missouri-St. Louis / OTS
Tropical forests in a changing world: Profound global implications and the evolving evidence

Steven Wofsy, Harvard University
Do forests really sequester carbon: A critical reassessment based on case studies spanning the climate spectrum

Peter Reich, University of Minnesota
Linking plant traits, community dynamics, and ecosystems processes across scales: Why might this matter in a changing world?

Tom Bruns, University of California, Berkeley
Dispersal of ectomycorrhizal fungi through space and time during post-fire regeneration of pine forests

David Neale, University of California, Davis
Development and application of genomic-based tools to nanage forest tree populations in response to climate change

Anna Sala, University of Montana
Physiological mechanisms of drought-induced tree mortality: There is much to learn

FRI, 30 APRIL

Jeffrey Vincent, Duke University
Valuing changes in tropical rainforests

Gregory Asner, Carnegie Institution for Science / Stanford University
Chemical phylogeny and remote sensing of tropical canopies

Jason McLachlan, University of Notre Dame
Anticipating the combined impact of forest fragmentation and climate-driven range shifts on forest genetics

Helene Muller-Landau, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
The tolerance-fecundity tradeoff and the maintenance of seed size diversity in variable and changing environments

Richard Condit, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Impact of environment and species input on diversity in stochastic community models and Center for Tropical Forest Science plots

Yadvinder Malhi, Oxford University
The productivity and carbon cycle of lowland and montane tropical forests in Amazonia

Daniel Nepstad, Woods Hole Research Center
Managing the Amazon forest dieback

Publications: Jan - Mar 2010

Craft, KJ, SU Pauls, K Darrow, SE Miller, PDN Hebert, LE Helgen, V Novotny, and GD Weiblen. 2010. Population genetics of ecological communities with DNA barcodes: An example from New Guinea Lepidoptera. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107(11): 5041-5046.
Abstract

Itoh, A, T Ohkubo, S Nanami, S Tan, T Yamakura. 2010. Comparison of statistical tests for habitat associations in tropical forests: A case study of sympatric dipterocarp trees in a Bornean forest. Forest Ecology and Management 259: 323–332.
Abstract

McMahon, SM, GG Parker, and DR Miller. 2010. Evidence for a recent increase in forest growth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107(8): 3611-3615.
Abstract & PDF

Muller-Landau, HC. The tolerance-fecundity trade-off and the maintenance of diversity in seed size. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107(9): 4242-4247.
Abstract

Zimmermann, A, B Zimmermann, and H Elsenbeer. 2009. Rainfall redistribution in a tropical forest: Spatial and temporal patterns. Water Resources Research 45, W11413, doi:10.1029/2008WR007470.
Abstract

Zimmermann, B, A Zimmermann, RM Lark, and H Elsenbeer. 2010. Sampling procedures for throughfall monitoring: A simulation study. Water Resources Research 46, W01503, doi:10.1029/2009WR007776.
Abstract