A fully funded NERC GW4+ PhD at Cardiff University, with Exeter, Bath and Florida, on how lightning ignites trees and how to reduce lightning-wildfire risk. Closes 7 January 2027.
A fully funded NERC GW4+ PhD at the University of Exeter on how wildfire and charcoal change soil carbon in Amazon forests. Closes 7 January 2027.
A PhD at the University of Exeter combining environmental sensing, microclimate modelling and machine learning to predict fine-scale climate, heat stress and fire risk in Amazon forests, with fieldwork in Brazil optional.
中国国家留学基金委和英国埃克塞特大学合作奖学金（博士生项目） Prof Ted Feldpausch is recruiting students for the China Scholarship Council and University of Exeter PhD Scholarships. Full-time PhD scholarships are available in collaboration with the China Scholarship Council (CSC), for September 2027/28 entry. Available PhD Projects The PhD projects focus on a range of themes related to fire, land-use change, tree mortality, carbon cycling, and forest […]
A new study in Communications Earth & Environment, co-authored at Exeter, shows that Amazonia’s climate extremes are changing far faster than its averages, and that the fastest-changing region is the central-north Amazon, far from the arc of deforestation.
A new policy brief distils our Global Change Biology study of 36 plots across the Colombian Andes: soil carbon rises six-fold from lowland to high-elevation forest, and a fire-derived fraction nine times the Amazon average makes it exceptionally durable — yet carbon-credit standards still treat soil as optional.
Amazonian rainforests play an important global role in maintaining biodiversity, regulating climate, generating rainfall, and storing carbon. Yet, despite their importance, these forests continue to face multiple forms of degradation.
By Oscar Kennedy-Blundell | Postdoctoral Research Associate I am currently working as a postdoctoral research associate focusing on black carbon, or pyrogenic carbon (PyC), in the Amazon Basin. My primary focus is modelling the occurrence of PyC using the RothC model and the JULES land surface model.
The soil in high-elevation, cooler, drier tropical forests in the Colombian Andes stores more carbon from fires than lower, warmer regions, new research shows.
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 São 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.
Artwork developed by our Amazon Past Fire and Amazon PyroCarbon Projects, funded by UK NERC and ODA grants, was shown at a new artwork exhibit to highlight deforestation and wildfire. Tipping Point, by Bristol artist Luke Jerram, combined smoke, lights and sound to simulate forest fires. The installation ran at the University of Bristol’s Botanic […]
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Opportunities. We are recruiting for a Postdoctoral Research Associate to model soil carbon and fire in tropical forests. Summary of the Role We wish to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Associate to support the work of Profs Richard Betts, Ted Feldpausch, […]
Tropical forests in South America lose their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere when conditions become exceptionally hot and dry, 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.
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.
The Municipal Secretary of Education of Confresa offered the event “I Workshop Exchange of Knowledge and Teaching on Burning in the Amazon”, 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, “Ancient fires enhance Amazon forest drought resistance” published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, we studied if ancient fires can alter the response of Amazonian forests to drought events.
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Opportunities. 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, […]
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 “Science and Practices of Fire in Amazonia: past, present and future”, 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, […]
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 Niño has found that even the wet forests of central Amazonia, forests considered relatively fire-resistant, were affected by fire.
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Opportunities. 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 […]
In our recent work studying the impact of record heat and drought on intact African tropical rainforests there was surprising resilience to the extreme conditions during the last major 2015/2016 El Niño event. The international study, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that intact rainforests across tropical Africa continued to remove […]
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Research opportunities. 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, […]
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 […]
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Opportunities. We are seeking qualified and motivated candidates to pursue a PhD studying how lighting affects tree mortality, carbon dynamics, and forest composition in tropical forests. Applications for the NERC GW4+ project are open, with a closing date of 16:00 […]
Tropical forests face an uncertain future under climate change, but new research published in Science suggests they can continue to store large amounts of carbon in a warmer world if countries limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Competition among trees is an important driver of community structure and dynamics in tropical forests. Neighboring trees may impact an individual tree’s 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.
The ability of the world’s tropical forests to remove carbon from the atmosphere is decreasing, according to a study tracking 300,000 trees over 30 years, published today in Nature.