Heterogeneity, Succession, and Patchiness as Factors Affecting Deforestation and Carbon Cycling

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Much attention has focused in recent years on rapid rates of deforestation in the Amazon Basin and about related extinctions of many plant and animal species and adverse impacts on global climatic patterns. Frequently overlooked, however, has been the ability of the region's forests to naturally regenerate in time frames that mitigate the detrimental impacts of deforestation. Some scientists estimate that as much as 85 percent of the forests are recolonized by native plants within a few years after clearance. This project will consist of a detailed analysis of the processes of natural regeneration and the roles of native people as they affect reforestation of forests in the Xingu Basin near Belo Monte in the central Amazon Basin. Analyses of remotely sensed data will be combined with field observations in order to estimate rates of cleared land and to track the rates of succession at two specific sites. Field-based analyses will assess the relationships among various successional forests, soil types, slope conditions, land uses; these analyses will determine rates of reforestation under different sets of conditions. Detailed analyses of past and present human activities in two sites with more fertile soils will provide a means for assessing the response of forests to clearance and the potential for encouraging deforestation activities into these types of areas rather than into areas with slower natural rates of recovery. This project will provide valuable new information into the processes by which cleared tropical forest tracts regenerate themselves. New insights will result both with respect to the Amazon forests of Brazil and for similar biomes on other continents. The project also will make methodological contributions, providing greater knowledge of the ways that remotely sensed data can be used to monitor deforestation and regeneration. Because this project is conducted in collaboration with two Brazilian agencies and because Brazilian nationals will be employed to help complete it, the project will help develop Brazilian scientific capabilities with respect to this important topic and these useful new methods.