Arnold Arboretum’s Robert Cook retires after 21 years

Last month, Robert E. Cook retired as director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University after having led the institution for over two decades. The Arnold Arboretum’s involvement with CTFS goes back to the early 1980s when Steve Hubbell and Peter Ashton (then director of the Arboretum) agreed to replicate the BCI plot in Malaysia. Today the CTFS network comprises 34 plots around the world and represents a rich, exemplary tradition of collaborative science.

Bob Cook has played a significant role in sustaining and advancing CTFS research and training, particularly in tropical Asia. Under his directorship in 2003, the Arboretum joined the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in supporting CTFS’s core Asian research. That agreement was renewed in 2007 with the Arboretum furthering its commitment to CTFS research in Asia.

Bob has also been instrumental in involving CTFS in undergraduate and graduate education at Harvard and abroad. Through its annual Biodiversity of Borneo summer course and International Field Biology Course, CTFS exposes students to the remarkable biodiversity of the Asian tropics and introduces them to the complexities of conservation and forest management.

Plant science has benefited greatly from Bob’s long career in research and academic administration. In 1989, he came to the Arnold Arboretum from Cornell University, where he had been the director of Cornell Plantations and an associate professor of ecology and systematics. Prior to that he was an associate professor at Harvard. We appreciate his support and leadership over many years and wish him the very best in retirement.

Publications: Dec 2009

To obtain a PDF of an article, please email Suzanne Lao at laoz@si.edu

Baltzer, JL, DM Gregoire, S Bunyavejchewin, NSM Noor, and SJ Davies. 2009. Coordination of foliar and wood anatomical traits contributes to tropical tree distributions and productivity along the Malay-Thai peninsula. American Journal of Botany 96(12): 2214-23.
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Dent, DH and SJ Wright. 2009. The future of tropical species in secondary forests: A quantitative review. Biological Conservation 142(12): 2833-43.
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Honorio Coronado, EN, TR Baker, OL Phillips, NCA. Pitman, RT Pennington, R Vasquez Martinez, A Monteagudo, H Mogollon, N Davila Cardozo, M Rios, R. Garcia-Villacorta, E Valderrama, M Ahuite, I Huamantupa, DA Neill, WF Laurance, HEM Nascimento, SS de Almeida, TJ Killeen, L Arroyo, P Nunez, and Freitas Alvarado. 2009. Multi-scale comparisons of tree composition in Amazonian terra firme forests. Biogeosciences 6(11): 2719-31.
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Nock, CA, D Geihofer, M Grabner, PJ Baker, S Bunyavejchewin, and Peter Hietz. 2009. Wood density and its radial variation in six canopy tree species differing in shade-tolerance in western Thailand. Annals of Botany 104: 297–306.
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Third Bornean forest dynamics plot launched

A new 50 ha forest dynamics plot will be established in lowland dipterocarp forest at Danum Valley in Sabah, Malaysia. The plot, which will follow CTFS protocols, adds a third site to the existing Bornean forest dynamics plots at Lambir (Sarawak) and Belalong (Brunei). It is designed to sample the rich flora of central Borneo on relatively nutrient-rich soils. The project represents a collaboration between David Burslem (Aberdeen University, UK), Glen Reynolds (Royal Society SEARRP), Andy Hector (University of Zurich, Switzerland), Waidi Sinun (Sabah Foundation), and CTFS and is funded by HSBC Malaysia for a period of five years.

The plot is part of the Royal Society's South East Asia Rain Forest Research Programme, which has operated the Danum Valley Field Centre with local partners since 1985 (see www.searrp.org). The plot will be located in undulating landscape of the Danum Valley Conservation Area and will provide a baseline for on-going studies of forest regeneration, carbon dynamics and biodiversity in adjacent logged forest and forest fragmented by oil palm plantations. Plot establishment will start at the end of this year. For further details contact David Burslem (d.burslem@abdn.ac.uk) or Glen Reynolds (glen.searrp@me.com).

Data-analysis workshop in Beijing

Text contributed by Dr. Mi Xiangcheng

To better understand the mechanisms of biodiversity maintenance in forests of the Chinese Forest Biodiversity Monitoring Network (CForBio), the Biodiversity Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and CTFS hosted a workshop on data analysis and management in Beijing on 14-24 October 2009. The workshop was led by Drs. Richard Condit, Shameema Esufali, and Yu-Yun Chen. Twenty-eight people from seven CForBio plots participated in the workshop.

Condit and Esufali used BCI plot data to demonstrate a variety of data-analysis methods, including maximum likelihood and MCMC. These demonstrations illustrated in detail the advantages and disadvantages of each method. Participants also received instruction in R and completed a series of computations.

The course on data management used the Gutianshan plot’s database for instruction in the establishment, management, and maintenance of plot data, all of which are essential to CTFS research. The intensive two-week workshop greatly enhanced participants’ ability to analyze and manage data, further strengthening by extension the entire network’s ability to investigate forest dynamics.

Publications: Nov 2009

To obtain a PDF of an article, please email Suzanne Lao at laoz@si.edu

Gonzalez, MA, C Baraloto, J Engel, SA Mori, P Pétronelli, B Riéra, A Roger, C Thébaud, and J Chave. 2009. Identification of Amazonian Trees with DNA barcodes. PLoS ONE 4(10): e7483.
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Kress, JW, DL Erickson, FA Jones, NG Swenson, R Perez, O Sanjur, and E Bermingham. 2009. Plant DNA barcodes and a community phylogeny of a tropical forest dynamics plot in Panama. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 106(44): 18621-18626.
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Rüger, N, A Huth, SP Hubbell, and R Condit. 2009. Response of recruitment to light availability across a tropical lowland rain forest community. Journal of Ecology 97(6): 1360–1368.
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Tan, S, T Yamakura, M Tani, P Palmiotto, JD Mamit, CS Pin, SJ Davies, P Ashton, and I Baillie. 2009. Review of soils on the 52 ha long term ecological research plot in mixed Dipterocarp forest at Lambir, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Tropics 18(2): 61-86.
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Wan Juliana, WA, DFRP Burslem, and MD Swaine. 2009. Nutrient limitation of seedling growth on contrasting soils from Pasoh Forest Reserve, Peninsular Malaysia. Journal of Tropical Forest Science 21(4): 316-327.
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Wolf, A, S Davies, and R Condit. 2009. Report from the 2009 Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting: Ecological insights from long-term research plots in tropical and temperate forests. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 90( 4): 519-525.
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Ilha do Cardoso 10-ha plot established in Brazil

Text contributed by Julia Stuart and Alberto Vicentini

Under the guidance of Alexandre de Oliveira, students from the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and technicians from Cananéia, Brazil, recently completed the first CTFS census of the 10-ha Ilha do Cardoso plot in Brazil. The plot was originally established in 2000/2004-05, with a DBH minimum of 4.78 cm, as one of four 10-ha plots in the project Parcelas Permanente São Paulo (PPSP, BIOTA-FAPESP) to study the Atlantic, restinga, semideciduous, and cerradão forest types that occur in São Paulo State.

In 2008, Ilha do Cardoso joined the CTFS network with the inauguration of a census to include all trees ≥ 1 cm. The census catalogued four new species (Rubiaceae) not enumerated in 2000/2004-05, bringing the plot total to 106 species and approximately 40,000 trees.

The plot is located in restinga forest in Ilha do Cardoso State Park on the extreme south coast of São Paulo State near the city of Cananéia. The mountainous island is approximately 22,500 ha and was made a state park in 1962. Despite nutrient-poor and water-stressed sandy soils, the forest shows high diversity. At 22°S latitude, Ilha do Cardoso is the southernmost plot in the CTFS network.

Funding from the HSBC Climate Partnership supported the census, and many research projects at Ilha do Cardoso are being coordinated by the Laboratório de Ecologia de Florestas Tropicais at USP.

China climate center welcomes citizen scientists

The opening of China’s Regional Climate Centre, the newest of five international sites where HSBC bank volunteers (called “Climate Champions”) work alongside scientists to study the effects of climate change on forests, was celebrated at Gutianshan Nature Reserve, China, on 22 September 2009. The HSBC Climate Partnership—a collaboration between HSBC, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Earthwatch Institute, WWF, and The Climate Group—has four other Regional Climate Centers in India, Brazil, the US, and the UK.

Earthwatch and the Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences host HSBC Climate Champions (kneeling above) at Gutianshan Nature Reserve in eastern China, where they measure tree growth and litter production using techniques developed by CTFS.

In 2005, Dr. Ma Keping (below left, with Teresa Au of HSBC) and colleagues established a long-term 24-ha forest-monitoring site in warm-temperate evergreen forest at Gutianshan as part of the Chinese Forest Biodiversity Monitoring Network, a partner network of the Center for Tropical Forest Science.