Links between C and H2O Cycling in Tropical Transitional Forests of the Southern Amazon Basin

这项研究将量化二氧化碳（CO2）和水（H2O）循环之间的联系，并确定这些联系如何被亚马逊热带森林的气候变化所改变，该森林位于热带稀树草原和雨林之间的重要气候过渡区（即，热带过渡林）。 实地测量将在3年的时间内进行，延长和扩大了自1999年以来在NSF支持下进行的国际合作研究工作。 在测量叶和整个森林尺度上的H2O和CO2交换的同时，还将测量气象学，以确定CO2和H2O循环如何受到气候变化的影响。 这些数据将用于测试和运行模型，这些模型将量化过渡森林碳和H2O循环对气候变化的敏感性。 这项研究通过将现场测量活动延长至7年以上，从而促进了对鲜为人知的热带系统的了解，从而量化和理解了CO2和H2O循环过程的年际变化。 这项研究还建立在加州州立大学圣马科斯分校（CSUSM）和巴西马托格罗索联邦大学（UFMT）之间的强有力的合作基础上，由生态生理学家，物理学家，地球化学家和水文学家组成的多元化研究团队，并启动了CSUSM和UFMT之间的学生经验和培训交流。 此次学生交流是在PI和UFMT合作者之间已经建立的交流之后进行的，这导致了UFMT建立了一个新的环境物理学硕士项目和几个联合撰写的出版物。

This research will quantify the links between carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) cycling and determine how these links are altered by variations in climate in an Amazonian tropical forest located within an important climatic transition between tropical savanna and rain forest (i.e., tropical transitional forest). Field measurements will be conducted over a 3-year period that extends and expands on an international collaborative research effort conducted since 1999 with NSF support. Measurements of H2O and CO2 exchange across leaf and whole-forest scales will be coupled with measurements of meteorology to determine how CO2 and H2O cycling is affected by variations in climate. These data will be used to test and run models that will quantify the sensitivity of transitional forest carbon and H2O cycling to climate change. This research advances the understanding of a poorly known tropical system by extending the field measurement campaign to over 7 years, allowing interannual variations in CO2 and H2O cycling processes to be quantified and understood. This research also builds on a strong collaboration between California State University-San Marcos (CSUSM) and the Federal University of Mato Grosso Brazil (UFMT), with a diverse research team made up of ecophysiologists, physicists, biogeochemists, and hydrologists, and initiates an exchange of student experiences and training between CSUSM and UFMT. The student exchange follows an already established exchange between the PI and UFMT collaborators, which resulted in the establishment of a new M.Sc. program in environmental physics at UFMT and several joint-authored publications.