Dossier
Amazon
The weather in the Amazon is more often dry nowadays and when it is, the world's biggest rainforest produces vast quantities of CO2. This may be the forest's death warrant, with serious consequences for climate. Wageningen researchers see both signs of stress and a surprising degree of resilience.
A lot of water combined with heat and sunlight provide ideal conditions for luxuriant plant growth. This becomes apparent when rain suddenly becomes scarce, as it did in 2005, 2010 and 2015. The vegetation grew at a slower pace and there were more forest fires.
The forest remains a tropical rainforest
Drought causes problems for trees and other plants which are used to a humid environment. The crowns of trees thin out and some trees die off completely. The response of forests to more frequent droughts is surprising: the forest may change in the composition of species present but it remains tropical rainforest, with more or less the same amount of biomass and of sequestrated CO2.
Research chair group Meteorology and Air Quality
Ingrid van der Laan-Luijkx, assistant professor at the Meteorology and Air Quality chair group, can see such effects from Wageningen by studying the air quality above the Amazon. Van der Laan's lab is working with Brazilian researchers who take regular air samples from a small plane at different altitudes above the Amazon.
Want to know more?
- What will the Amazon do? Wageningen World, 2016-4
- Regional atmospheric CO2 inversion reveals seasonal and geographic differences in Amazon net biome exchange, Global Change Biology, 28 April 2016
- Collecting air above the Amazon. Resource, 12 Feb 2015
Publications about the Amazon
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Shifting cultivation in decline : An analysis of soil fertility and weed pressure in intensified cropping systems in Eastern Amazon
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment (2024), Volume: 360 - ISSN 0167-8809 -
Solar spectral irradiance measurements above and in-canopy (SLOCS and CloudRoots Amazonia, 2022)
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State of Wildfires 2023-24
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Global disparity of camera trap research allocation and defaunation risk of terrestrial mammals
Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation (2024), Volume: 10, Issue: 1 - ISSN 2056-3485 - p. 121-136. -
Integrating satellite-based forest disturbance alerts improves detection timeliness and confidence
Environmental Research Letters (2024), Volume: 19, Issue: 5 - ISSN 1748-9326 -
Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities
Journal of Biogeography (2024), Volume: 51, Issue: 7 - ISSN 0305-0270 - p. 1163-1184. -
Ecosystem type affects how Amazonian tree species invest in stem and twig wood
Functional Ecology (2024), Volume: 38, Issue: 7 - ISSN 0269-8463 - p. 1486-1496. -
Panarchy to explore land use : a historical case study from the Peruvian Amazon
Sustainability Science (2024), Volume: 19, Issue: 4 - ISSN 1862-4065 - p. 1187-1203. -
From earthquakes to island area : multi-scale effects upon local diversity
Ecography (2024), Volume: 2024, Issue: 5 - ISSN 0906-7590 -
Low-emissions and profitable cocoa through moderate-shade agroforestry : Insights from Ghana
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment (2024), Volume: 367 - ISSN 0167-8809