Ted Feldpausch is a Professor of Terrestrial Ecology and Global Change, Director of Postgraduate Research in Physical Geography, Faculty of Environment, Science, and Economy and part of the Landscape and Ecosystem Dynamics group and Global Systems Institute. His research and teaching span global forests and savannas, with a focus on the tropics, especially Latin America, where he has lived and worked for more than 20 years. A major theme of his work is tropical forest resilience, degradation, and recovery. His research aims to understand the drivers of vegetation dynamics and structure, the effect of changing climate on carbon and nutrient cycling and storage, and how disturbance and forest degradation, including natural processes and anthropogenic conversion, affect long-term vegetation function. Recent work has expanded from evaluating the contemporary effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbance and forest degradation on vegetation function (e.g., fire, drought, logging, lightning) to studying drivers over centennial time scales. He trained in Plant Biology & Environmental Sciences at Michigan State University and then worked in research with the US Forest Service and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He obtained an MSc and PhD in Forest Ecology & Soil Science at Cornell University studying secondary forests, restoration, and logging while living for several years in central and southern Amazonia. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell using stable isotopes to study changes in plant and soil carbon dynamics due to invasive species, he moved to a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Leeds to study the drivers of change in pantropical tropical forests and savannas. Externally, he is a teaching professor at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) and the University of Mato Grosso State (UNEMAT), Brazil where he teaches and supervises post-graduate students. His University of Exeter web page can be found here.
Tropical forest ecology; Amazonia and Africa; Land-cover, land-use change; Forest disturbance, degradation, and restoration; Logging; Forest-climate interactions; Drought; Fire; Pyrogenic carbon; Terrestrial carbon and nutrient cycling
PhD, Forest Ecology/Soil Science, Cornell University
MSc, Soil Science/Conservation and Sustainable Land-use, Cornell University
BSc, Environmental Plant Biology, Michigan State University
Teaching professor at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), Brazil, Tropical Forest Science post-graduate program
Teaching professor at the University of Mato Gross State (UNEMAT), Brazil, Ecology and Conservation post-graduate program
AMAZONICA, TROBIT, and RAINFOR projects, University of Leeds, UK. Funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
US National Science Foundation project, Cornell University, NY USA
NASA-sponsored Large- Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA-ECO)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, United States Department of Energy, WA USA
US Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, MI, USA
People and the Amazon: New display developed in the tropical biome of the Eden Project based on research by Prof Ted Feldpausch and Prof Jose Iriarte (2023) Eden Project
Teach the teacher: Biology student at Universidade Federal de Acre shares her work to teach about forest fires in Amazonia (2023) Ministério da Educação, UFAC
Workshop at the Universidade Federal de Acre evaluates approaches to teach about wildfire in Amazonia (2023) Ministério da Educação, UFAC
Ancient fires may be helping the Amazon survive droughts – modern ones, not so much (2023) Mongabay
Major 2015 wildfires in central Amazon killed a quarter of vegetation (2021) New Scientist
Workshop on Fire in Amazonia Sciences and Practices: Past, Present, Future (2021) Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation-Brazil
Innovation by ancient indigenous farmers increased biodiversity in Amazonia (2020) Univ. Exeter, Mongabay, Planeta (Portuguese)
Animation about the BioResilience project, ‘Biodiversity resilience and ecosystem services in post-conflict socio-ecological systems’, developed with Chris Haughton, NERC, AHRC, and Hay Festival (2020) youtube
Espiral: Translating the complexities of conservation (2020) NERC News (read the story here: English, Spanish pdf)
Long-term thermal sensitivity of Earth’s tropical forests (2020) Univ. Exeter, Science, Folha de S. Paulo, (learn more)
Small trees are among the oldest in African rainforests (2019) Univ. Exeter, Nature, Phys.org, Daily Science, Summary
Global trait–environment relationships of plant communities (2018) EurekAlert!
Compositional response of Amazon forests to climate change (2018) Independent, Brazil G1, Holland, Germany, China
Brazil’s actual forest-related CO2 emissions could blow by Paris pledge (2018) Mongabay
Record Amazon fires and degraded forests (2017) Mongabay
Persistent effects of pre-Columbian plant domestication on Amazonian forest composition (2017) BBC, The Atlantic, Science Daily, Univ. Exeter, NYT
Tropical rainstorms and a wobbly rope bridge in the cloudy treetops (2017) Eden Project
The effect of climate change, lightning, fire, and drought on tropical forests – Eden Project interview (2017) YouTube
Record heat and drought seen in Amazon during 2015-16 El Niño (2017) Mongabay
Amazon forest response to repeated droughts (2016) BBC, Univ. Exeter, Mongabay, El Colombiano (Spanish), Trouw (Dutch)
Most accurate picture yet of how the Amazon will respond to climate change (2016) Washington Post, Univ. Exeter
The Climate Post: Climate Pledges May Not Be Enough (2015) Huffington Post
Amazon’s carbon uptake declines as trees die faster (2015) The Guardian, NYT, Univ. Exeter, O Globo
Half of tree species in the Amazon at risk of extinction (2015) The Guardian, BBC News, Univ. Exeter
One percent of tree species in the Amazon forest account for half of its carbon (2015) BBC News, Univ. Exeter
Just 227 species dominate Amazon landscape (2013) The Guardian, BBC News
Pruning back carbon estimates (2012) Nature
West Africa forest biomass on rise despite drought (2012) BBC News
2022-2023, ‘Teach the teacher: developing local capacity to teach about forest fires risks and impacts and alternative land-use in Amazonia, Brazil’, ODA – £18k, PI: Feldpausch, Project Partners: L. Anderson (CEMADEN), L. Carvalho, S. Reis (UFAC), M. Pereira (UNEMAT), Y. Depaula, Brazil.
2022 – 2026, ‘Amazon PyroCarbon: Quantifying soil carbon responses to fire and climate change’, NERC-FAPESP (NE/W001691/1) – £1.3M (£653,000 Exeter), PI: Feldpausch, co-Is K.J. van Groenigen, S. Chadburn, L. Aragao, L. Carvalho, and colleagues from the UK, USA, Australia, and South America.
2021, ‘Do past fires explain current carbon dynamics of “old-growth” Amazonian forests?’, Exeter-NERC CoA, £26,200, PI: Feldpausch, co-Is C. Belcher, L. Aragao, O. Phillips.
2021, NERC Radiocarbon Facility, charcoal 14C AMS dates, Forests, peat, and past fires: understanding the drivers of past fire in Amazonian forests.£5,509Y. Wang, A. Gallego-Sala, T. Feldpausch.
2020-2021 Projeto CNPq/PELD: Transição Cerrado-Amazônia: bases ecológicas e socioambientais para a conservação (etapa IV) (Long-term Ecological Research Project: Cerrado-Amazonia Transition: ecological and socioenvironmental basis for conservation), £54k (R$383,500), PI: B.H. Marimon, coIs: B.S. Marimon, T. Feldpausch, et al.
2019-2020, NERC Radiocarbon Facility, charcoal 14C AMS dates to support NERC Amazon Past Fire Project, 400 dates, £200,800, PI: T. Feldpausch, coIs: L. Aragão, C. Belcher, O. Phillips
2018 – 2021, ‘BioResilience: Biodiversity resilience and ecosystem services in post-conflict socio-ecological systems in Colombia’, NERC/AHRC (NE/R017980/1), £1.4M, PI: T. Feldpausch, co-Is: D. Urrego, T. Pennington, N. Millner, L. Mercado, project partners: E. Alvarez-Davila, C.R. Montes-Pulido, J. Richardson, D. Armenteras, C. Velasquez-Ruiz, O.L. Hernandez-Manrique
2018 – 2021, ColombiaBio Programme Project Integration, NERC/AHRC, £300k, grant divided equally among five funded ColombiaBio projects, including T. Feldpausch as PI, co-Is: D. Urrego, T. Pennington, N. Millner, L. Mercado, project partners: E. Alvarez-Davila, C.R. Montes-Pulido, J. Richardson, D. Armenteras, C. Velasquez-Ruiz, O.L. Hernandez-Manrique
2018, NERC Radiocarbon Facility, charcoal 14C AMS dates to support a pilot study evaluating variation in past fire across Amazonia, £13,554, PI Feldpausch
2018, QUEX Initiator grant, Amazon pyrogenic carbon: soil, peat, and Aeolian transport, £10k, PI Feldpausch, co-I Gallego-Sala
2017, ‘Historical fire effects on old-growth Amazon forest, soil fertility and carbon storage’ Official Development Assistance (ODA), NERC, £20k, T. Feldpausch (PI) and L. Aragao (co-I).
2017, ‘Effects of El Niño and fire on Colombian forests’, Ayudar Colombia and Santander Universities, £1680, T. Feldpausch (PI), L.C.S Carvalho (co-I), E. Alvarez-Dávila (project partner, Colombia)
2016 – 2020, ‘Cerrado-Amazonia Transition: ecological and socio-environmental basis for conservation’ – Long-Term Ecological Research Network, CNPq-Brazil, £147k, B.S. Marimon (PI), Project partners: B.H. Marimon, O. Phillips, R. Brienen, T.R. Feldpausch
2016 – 2019, “Forest Network (ReFlor): biodiversity, climate change, and biotechnology in the ‘Arc of Deforestation’, Brazil”, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Mato Grosso (FAPEMAT), £58k, PI B.H. Marimon, Rafael Soares de Arruda (co-I), Project partners: B.S. Marimon, O. Phillips, E. Gloor, T.R. Feldpausch
2016 – 2022 ‘Lightning: An invisible driver of tree mortality in the tropics?’ NERC (NE/P001564/1), £800k, Hill, T. (PI); Co-I: T.R. Feldpausch, E. Mitchard, M. Haddad; Project Partners: G. Chuyong, H. Chapman, J. Elworthy, L. Rowland, D. Mitchard
2016 – 2021, ‘Do past fires explain current carbon dynamics of “old-growth” Amazonian forests?’, NERC (NE/N011570/1), £575,107, Feldpausch, T.R. (PI); Co-I: L. Aragão, C. Belcher, O. Phillips; Project Partners: M. Bird, C. Quesada, K. Macario, Ben Hur Marimon, Beatriz Marimon.
2016 – 2017, ‘The Weather Maker Live: Research projects piloted and communicated’, Eden Project and University of Exeter Research Collaboration Fund, £7500, J. Elworthy (PI), R. Betts (co-I), Project partners: T. Hill, L. Rowland, I. Hartley, L. Mercado, T.R. Feldpausch
2014 – 2016, ‘Biomass and fire in degraded forests in Peru and Brazil: Evaluation using airborne LIDAR remote sensing’, SilvaCarbon Fund, £133k, Keller, M. (PI); Feldpausch, T.R. (Co-I)
2014 – 2016, ‘Phytogeography and paleovegetation of the Amazon/Cerrado transition in Mato Grosso, Brazil’, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Mato Grosso (FAPEMAT), £6400, Marimon, B.H. (PI); Feldpausch, T.R. (Project Partner)
2013 – 2016, ‘Phytogeographic characterization, species distribution, and woody vegetation determinants in the Cerrado / Amazonia transition’, Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), £55,300, Marimon, B.H. (PI); Feldpausch, T.R. (Project Partner)
2012 – 2015, ‘Fire, pyrogenic carbon, and Amazonian forest’, Brazilian National Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), £137k, Feldpausch, T.R. (PI); Project partners: B.H. Marimon, B. Marimon, C. Quesada, M. Bird, K. Macario
2011 – 2012, ‘Assessing the impacts of the 2010 drought at the Amazon forest-savanna zone of tension’, NERC (NE/I02982X/1), £65k, Phillips, O. (PI), Feldpausch, T.R. (Co-I), Project partners: J. Lloyd, Y. Malhi, L. Arroyo, B.H. Marimon, B. Marimon
2008 Royal Society Networking grant: ‘Development of a Ghanaian-led long-term forest monitoring initiative to evaluate climate change effects on West African forests’ (PI Feldpausch, £10k)
2008-2010 Royal Society International Joint Projects grant, ‘Liana impacts on the structure and carbon balance of African forests’ (PI Feldpausch, £12k)
SYNthesising Ecological Responses to deGradation In amaZonian Environments (Synergize)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6631-7962