Descrizione del progetto
Prevedere gli effetti dei cambiamenti climatici sul futuro delle foreste tropicali
Le foreste tropicali forniscono importanti servizi ecosistemici per le popolazioni umane, come lo stoccaggio del carbonio, la regolazione del clima e un serbatoio di biodiversità. Tuttavia, il futuro di questi servizi ecosistemici rimane incerto poiché i cambiamenti climatici globali stanno rapidamente alterando le foreste tropicali in termini di composizione, dinamica e funzioni. Per migliorare le previsioni sul futuro delle foreste tropicali in presenza di condizioni abiotiche e biotiche mutevoli, è necessario chiarire i meccanismi con cui il fenotipo degli alberi tropicali può registrare differenze nelle prestazioni individuali lungo i gradienti ambientali. Utilizzando approcci di modellazione all’avanguardia con indagini demografiche a lungo termine ed estesi dati sulle caratteristiche di oltre 700 specie arboree tropicali in quattro continenti, il progetto TropDemTrait, finanziato dall’UE, si propone di fornire una migliore comprensione meccanicistica sulle dinamiche della foresta tropicale in risposta ai fattori abiotici e biotici su scala pantropicale.
Obiettivo
Tropical forests represent key terrestrial ecosystems for carbon stocks and biodiversity. The dynamics of carbon storage in forests are primarily driven by tree performance in terms of mortality and growth. But climate change is rapidly altering tree performance, with important consequences for carbon cycle, climate regulation and biodiversity. Yet, we are still lacking accurate predictions of the response of tropical forest in terms of their composition, dynamics and functions to altered climate. While demographic approaches have traditionally focused on how individual performance vary with ontogeny or size, trait-based approaches have often focused on how morphological or physiological properties of individuals (traits) change with abiotic and biotic factors and links to performance. Though the link between traits and performance influences population dynamics and subsequent community structure and ecosystem functions, we still understand very little about the drivers shaping the trait-performance relationship. With tropical forests facing rapidly changing abiotic and biotic conditions with global changes, we need a better mechanistic understanding of tropical tree growth and mortality response to the interplay of traits with abiotic and biotic factors. The proposed project will yield a major contribution to this goal by using state-of-the-art, powerful modelling approaches with unprecedented demographic data spanning over 40 years and leaf and wood economics and hydraulics traits of over 700 tropical tree species distributed in 74 forest plots along broad soil and climatic gradients on four continents. Our results will bring a mechanistic understanding of how the interplay of species traits, tree size, climate, soil, and biotic interactions impact tree growth and mortality rates in tropical forests, while disentangling region-specific from pantropical effects.
Campo scientifico
- social sciencessociologydemographymortality
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturehorticulturearboriculture
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesforestry
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinatore
13572 Marseille
Francia