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.
Lorena de Souza Fleury’s MSc at INPA finds that forest age, not fertiliser, drove carbon recovery in Amazonian secondary forests after 25 years, with soil holding most of the carbon.
Amazon Soil Carbon: Policy Brief Summary The conversion of forest to agriculture in the Amazon triggers a “deforestation multiplier”: the ecosystem loses carbon equivalent to about 1.2 times the original forest’s aboveground biomass. Current carbon-credit standards such as Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) focus on standing timber, yet new evidence highlights the significant, unprotected carbon […]
A new study reveals an unprecedented increase in wildfires in tropical peatlands during the 20th century. Peatlands store vast quantities of carbon below the Earth’s surface – more than all the world’s forest biomass combined – but when they catch fire large amounts of the stored carbon is released into the atmosphere. Wildfires in tropical regions have been on the rise in recent decades, but the history and characteristics of wildfires in tropical peatlands remain largely unknown. […]
After thousands of kilometres of fieldwork across the Amazon, around two thousand soil samples have passed through the CENA laboratory in Piracicaba. This is the story of how they are dried, ground, sieved, weighed, and analysed to reveal how wildfires affect Amazonian soils.
The Amazon PyroCarbon project has covered thousands of kilometres across Mato Grosso, Rondônia, Amazonas, Acre, and Pará over the past three years. This is the story of the road trips, the Guerreira, and the soil that comes home with the team.
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Research opportunities. Pyrogenic Carbon in the Amazon: quantifying soil carbon responses to the effect of fire. 2021/00976-4 – UKRI – NERC – Research Project – Thematic Plinio Barbosa de Camargo (CENA/USP) – Ted R. Feldpausch Institution: Center for Nuclear Energy […]
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Research opportunities. A fully-funded PhD scholarship is available at the University of Exeter: Soil carbon dynamics following Amazon forest wildfires About the award Supervisors Lead Supervisor Dr Kees Jan Van Groenigen, Department of Geography, University of Exeter Additional Supervisors Professor […]
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 […]
In November–December 2024, a seven-member Amazon PyroCarbon Project team established 22 soil plots across contrasting fire histories in the Manaus region, central Amazonia, advancing understanding of fire impacts on soil carbon dynamics.
Between 19 and 30 April 2024, the Amazon PyroCarbon Project team travelled to Acre, Brazil, to revisit permanent burned-forest plots, collect soils and charcoal for ancient fire dating, and install soil respiration monitoring equipment across nine forest plots, three pastures, and two agroforestry systems.
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Opportunities. 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 “fire”, that drive the spatial variation of soil organic carbon (SOC) and […]
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, […]
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., ‘off-site’) 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 […]
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Opportunities. There is a post-doctoral opportunity at INPE to study forest degradation, fire, and soil carbon using remote sensing.
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, […]
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.
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 […]
Other tags used on our site...