Abstract
Despite being suggested, for more than 20 years now, as a process of utter importance for the resilience of tropical forests and maintenance of the global carbon cycle, the existence, magnitude and duration of a supposed "CO2 fertilization" effect in tropical forests remains largely undetermined. This research proposal - submitted concomitantly to DFG by German collaborator scientists - initiates the long-term ecosystem modeling activities within the AmazonFACE (Free-Air CO2 Enrichment) experiment that is initiated in central Amazonia aiming to investigate the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on the ecology and resilience of the forest - which is also the major objective of this proposal. A set of scientific questions related to carbon metabolism and cycling, water use, nutrient cycling and tropical forest plant diversity will be investigated inside three project tasks: (1) an assumption-based intercomparison of results from four dynamic global vegetation models (DGVM) run with LBA input data from the AmazonFACE experimental site under current and +200ppmv [CO2] that will provide the first set of hypothesis to be in the future verified in the field experiment (and also useful for other ongoing projects); (2) development of a new DGVM based on functional traits and trade-offs (instead of the standard plant functional types logic) that will provide better ways to tackle the enormous plant diversity found in tropical forests and how they respond to environmental changes; and (3) a simple exercise to investigate potential feedbacks that elevated [CO2] can cause between the Amazonian biosphere and atmosphere using a DGVM dynamically coupled to a general circulation model of the atmosphere-ocean system. Exchange of data and expertise will be fostered through international collaborations and with support of two joint workshops. As typical to modeling research, most of the requested budget relates to the funding of personnel through fellowships. At this stage this project is independent on the execution of the AmazonFACE experiment since it will not use any data to be generated by the experiment. However, as suggested by the most up-to-date discussions in the topic, the approach of integrating ecosystem modeling and observational experimentation such as proposed here is key to efficiently enhance our predictive understanding of climate change's impact on the Amazon and other tropical ecosystems. (AU)
| Articles published in Pesquisa FAPESP Magazine about the research grant: |
| La selva de la lluvia |
| The rainforest |
| Articles published in Agência FAPESP Newsletter about the research grant: |
| TITULO |
| Articles published in other media outlets (0 total): |
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