A new study shows the significant impact of recurring fires and agricultural conversion on soil carbon storage in the Amazon rainforest. The research, a collaboration between the University of Exeter (UoE) and Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA) at the University of SĆ£o Paulo (USP), demonstrates substantial carbon loss and degradation of soil properties […]
The Amazon rainforest, an important carbon sink, faces increasing threats from deforestation and wildfires. But what happens to the soil carbon after these disturbances? MSc student, Lorena Fleury, in the Tropical Forest Science Postgraduate Programme at the National Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA), supervised by Prof. Ted Feldpausch, has been sampling soil in secondary […]
Our new study published in the journal Science reveals a concerning trend, that tropical forests across the Americas are changing their composition and function too slowly to keep up with the pace of climate change. This mismatch puts these important ecosystems, biodiversity hotspots, and carbon sinks at significant risk.
We recently published a paper led by PhD student Maurivan Barros Pereira (State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT)), supervised by Prof. Ted Feldpausch and co-supervised by Drs Ben Hur Marimon Junior and Fernando Elias da Silva. The findings were published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, āPost-fire changes in tree diversity, composition and carbon […]
Applications open for fully-funded PhDs starting in 2024 The University of Exeter is offering up to 15 fully funded doctoral studentships for September 2024 entry as part of our Doctoral Training Partnership with the EPSRC (Engineering, Physical Sciences Research Council). The PhD projects focus on a range of themes related to fire, land-use change, lightning […]
FAPESP Opportunity Postdoctoral Opportunity to Quantifying Soil Organic Carbon Responses to Landscape-Scale Fire in the Amazon This research aims to map and quantify the environmental factors, especially āfireā, that drive the spatial variation of soil organic carbon (SOC) and its āpyrogenicā fraction (CPi) in the Amazon. It is based on 2 objectives: O1. Modeling baseline […]
Tropical forests in South America lose their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere when conditions become exceptionally hot and dry,Ā according to new research. For a long time, tropical forests have acted as a carbon sink, taking more carbon out of the air than they release into it, a process that has moderated the impact […]
Prof Ted Feldpausch and Prof Jose Iriarte developed a new display with the Eden Project to communicate to the public research findings about historical land-use and fire use by pre-Columbian people.
Expert talk – āThe history of people and fire in the Amazon rainforestā Where: The Core Film Room (1st floor), The Eden Project, Cornwall, UK When: 2pm, 11-Sept-2023 People have been living in the Amazon rainforest for 13,000 years. Their use of fire and plants has had long-term impacts on forest structure, composition, and soils. Join Professor Ted Feldpausch and Professor JosĆ© […]
Phytolith analysis is a well-established archaeobotanical tool, having provided important insights into pre-Columbian crop cultivation and domestication across Amazonia through the Holocene. Yet, its use as a palaeoecological tool is in its infancy in Amazonia and its effectiveness for reconstructing pre-Columbian land-use beyond archaeological sites (i.e., āoff-siteā) has so far received little critical attention. In […]
In a major collaboration involving 80 scientists from Europe and South America, our research identified the regions of the Amazon rainforest where trees are most likely to face the greatest risk from drier conditions brought about by climate change. Based on the analysis, our research predicts trees in the western and southern Amazon face the […]
As part of the NERC-funded Amazon Past Fire project, we coordinated a training session with university students in the secondary education teaching programme at the Federal Universidade de Acre, Brazil, about fire impacts, management, and sustainable forest use in Brazil.
There is a post-doctoral opportunity at INPE to study forest degradation, fire, and soil carbon using remote sensing.
The Municipal Secretary of Education of Confresa offered the event āI Workshop Exchange of Knowledge and Teaching on Burning in the Amazonā, which took place on February 22, 23 and 24, 2023, in the face-to-face format at the municipality of Confresa, MT. Funded by the University of Exeter (UK) and the Natural Environmental Research Council, […]
In our recent paper, āAncient fires enhance Amazon forest drought resistanceā published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, we studied if ancient fires can alter the response of Amazonian forests to drought events.
Researchers at the University of Exeter describe some of the globally important research that they lead on tropical forests and peatlands.
This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the NERC Great Western Four+ Doctoral Training Partnership (GW4+ DTP). The GW4+ DTP consists of the Great Western Four alliance of the University of Bath, University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter plus five Research Organisation partners: British […]
In our recent paper, “Forest Fire History in Amazonia Inferred From Intensive Soil Charcoal Sampling and Radiocarbon Dating” published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, we examined the history of ancient fire in intact rainforests across Amazonia using radiocarbon dating.
A two-day hybrid workshop (both online and in-person) was held on 25th and 26th November 2021 that included 20 participants from different institutions in the United Kingdom, Australia, Colombia, Spain, and Brazil.
The four-day workshop āScience and Practices of Fire in Amazonia: past, present and futureā, organized by the University of Exeter, with Brazilian institutions (Cemaden, INPE and UNEMAT), was held between 8 and 11 November – online. The workshop was attended by almost 300 people*, most of them Brazilian and about 15% of foreigners (Europe, Africa, […]
The Workshop held by the University of Exeter, National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and University of Mato Grosso State (UNEMAT) will be held online (synchronous) with offline (asynchronous) content also being produced. The event is free of charge and will take place between […]
This video and paper highlight the work we are doing through ForestPlots.net to take the pulse of Earth’s tropical forests. Research and activities through Forestplots.net for the past decade and a half have created opportunities to advance understanding of tropical forests and trained the next generation of tropical forest scientists.
Research at the University of Exeter examines how measurements of charcoal reflectance can be used to understand fire regimes and carbon dynamics in tropical forests in South America.
A new study by Pontes-Lopes et al. 2021 examining the impacts of the record-breaking drought and fires caused by the 2015/2016 El NiƱo has found that even the wet forests of central Amazonia, forests considered relatively fire-resistant, were affected by fire.
The public selection process is now open for assessing and selecting candidates for admission to the Masters and PhD programme in the Tropical Forests Science Programme at the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) with research projects matching themes of the Post-graduate programme in Tropical Forest Science (PPG-CFT).
Two complementary PhD studentships have been funded thanks to donations from long-term University of Exeter supporters, the A. G. Leventis Foundation. Both will be based within the Global Systems Institute and focus on tropical forest protection and restoration, specifically understanding carbon storage within degraded and recovering forest ecosystems.
Fire is an important cause of disturbance in terrestrial ecosystems and can has a major impact on biodiversity. We evaluated the effect of fire regime on species richness and tree basal area in southern Amazon forest using Landsat and PALSAR data.
A huge new study has unravelled what factors control tree mortality rates in Amazon forests and helps to explain why tree mortality is increasing across the Amazon basin. The capacity of the Amazon forest to store carbon in a changing climate will ultimately be determined by how fast trees die. The new analysis found that the […]
A major study in forests across the tropics is the first global assessment of palm tree numbers to better understand forest composition, diversity, and to reduce uncertainty about the role of palms in the carbon balance in these ecosystems.
Innovation by ancient farmers to improve soil fertility continue to have an impact on the biodiversity of the Amazon, a major new study shows.
Competition among trees is an important driver of community structure and dynamics in tropical forests. Neighboring trees may impact an individual treeās growth rate and probability of mortality, but large-scale geographic and environmental variation in these competitive effects has yet to be evaluated across the tropical forest biome.