PT Journal
AU Cecilia Blundo
   Julieta Carilla
   Ricardo Grau
   Agustina Malizia
   Lucio Malizia
   Oriana Osinaga-Acosta
   Michael Bird
   Bradford, M
   Damien Catchpole
   Andrew Ford
   Andrew Graham
   David Hilbert
   Jeanette Kemp
   Susan Laurance
   William Laurance
   Francoise Yoko Ishida
   Andrew Marshall
   Catherine Waite
   Hannsjoerg Woell
   Jean-Francois Bastin
   Marijn Bauters
   Hans Beeckman
   Pfascal Boeckx
   Jan Bogaert
   Charles De Canniere
   Thales de Haulleville
   Jean-Louis Doucet
   Olivier Hardy
   Wannes Hubau
   Elizabeth Kearsley
   Hans Verbeeck
   Jason Vleminckx
   Steven W. Brewer
   Alfredo Alarc´on
   Alejandro Araujo-Murakami
   Eric Arets
   Luzmila Arroyo
   Ezequiel Chavez
   Todd Fredericksen
   Ren´e Guill´en Villaroel
   Gloria Gutierrez Sibauty
   Timothy Killeen
   Juan Carlos Licona
   John Lleigue
   Casimiro Mendoza
   Samaria Murakami
   Alexander Parada Gutierrez
   Guido Pardo
   Marielos Pena-Claros
   Lourens Poorter
   Marisol Toledo
   Jeanneth Villalobos Cayo
   Laura Jessica Viscarra
   Vincent Vos
   Jorge Ahumada
   Everton Almeida
   Jarcilene Almeida aq, EAdO
   Wesley Alves da Cruz
   Atila Alves de Oliveira
   Fabrício Alvim Carvalho
   Flavio Amorim Obermuller
   Ana Andrade
   Fernanda Antunes Carvalho
   Simone Aparecida Vieira
   Ana Carla Aquino
   Luiz Aragao
   Ana Claudia Araújo
   Marco Antonio Assis
   Jose Ataliba Mantelli Aboin Gomes
   Fabrício Baccaro
   Plínio Barbosa de Camargo
   Paulo Barni
   Jorcely Barroso
   Luis Carlos Bernacci
   Kauane Bordin
   Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros
   Igor Broggio
   Jose Luís Camargo
   Domingos Cardoso
   Maria Antonia Carniello
   Andre Luis Casarin Rochelle
   Carolina Castilho
   Antonio Alberto Jorge Farias Castro
   Wendeson Castro
   Sabina Cerruto Ribeiro
   Flavia Costa
   Rodrigo Costa de Oliveira
   Italo Coutinho
   John Cunha
   Lola da Costa
   Lucia da Costa Ferreira
   Richarlly da Costa Silva
   Marta da Graça Zacarias Simbine
   Vitor de Andrade Kamimura
   Haroldo Cavalcante de Lima
   Lia de Oliveira Melo
   Luciano de Queiroz
   Jose Romualdo de Sousa Lima
   Mario do Espírito Santo
   Tomas Domingues
   Nayane Cristina dos Santos Prestes
   Steffan Eduardo Silva Carneiro
   Fernando Elias
   Gabriel Eliseu
   Thaise Emilio
   Camila Laís Farrapo
   Letícia Fernandes
   Gustavo Ferreira
   Joice Ferreira
   Leandro Ferreira
   Socorro Ferreira
   Marcelo Fragomeni Simon
   Maria Aparecida Freitas
   Queila S. García
   Angelo Gilberto Manzatto
   Paulo Graça
   Frederico Guilherme
   Eduardo Hase
   Niro Higuchi
   Mariana Iguatemy
   Reinaldo Imbrozio Barbosa
   Margarita Jaramillo
TI Taking the pulse of Earth’s tropical forests using networks of highly distributed plots
SO Biological Conservation
PY 2021
VL 260
DI 10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108849
DE parcelle; forêt tropicale; biodiversité forestière; Écosystème forestier; Écologie forestière; Changement de couvert végétal; Couvert forestier
AB Tropical forests are the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. While better understanding of these forests is critical for our collective future, until quite recently efforts to measure and monitor them have been largely disconnected. Networking is essential to discover the answers to questions that transcend borders and the horizons of funding agencies. Here we show how a global community is responding to the challenges of tropical ecosystem research with diverse teams measuring forests tree-by-tree in thousands of long-term plots. We review the major scientific discoveries of this work and show how this process is changing tropical forest science. Our core approach involves linking long-term grassroots initiatives with standardized protocols and data management to generate robust scaled-up results. By connecting tropical researchers and elevating their status, our Social Research Network model recognises the key role of the data originator in scientific discovery. Conceived in 1999 with RAINFOR (South America), our permanent plot networks have been adapted to Africa (AfriTRON) and Southeast Asia (T-FORCES) and widely emulated worldwide. Now these multiple initiatives are integrated via ForestPlots.net cyber-infrastructure, linking colleagues from 54 countries across 24 plot networks. Collectively these are transforming understanding of tropical forests and their biospheric role. Together we have discovered how, where and why forest carbon and biodiversity are responding to climate change, and how they feedback on it. This long-term pan-tropical collaboration has revealed a large long-term carbon sink and its trends, as well as making clear which drivers are most important, which forest processes are affected, where they are changing, what the lags are, and the likely future responses of tropical forests as the climate continues to change. By leveraging a remarkably old technology, plot networks are sparking a very modern revolution in tropical forest science. In the future, humanity can benefit greatly by nurturing the grassroots communities now collectively capable of generating unique, long-term understanding of Earth's most precious forests.
ER