Imbalance-P

For the 125th anniversary congress of IUFRO (Freiburg, September 2017), Stephan Pietsch (IIASSA) has organised, together with Plinio Sist (IRAD) and Robert Nasi (CIFOR), as session entitled: “Progress in tropical forest management: Assuring sustainability, avoiding degradation and assisting restoration”.

Here we attach the full description of sessions under theme 4. The call will be opened until the end of november.

IUFRO 2017 – Session 4

Dr. Oriol Grau (CREAF) participated with a talk about his work on tropical forests in the 53rd meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (19-23 June 2016 – Montpellier, France).

The speach, entitled “Do soil characteristics determine forest structure and dynamics in poor Amazonian soils?” took place under the session “Management impacts on biodiversity and carbon/nutrient balances in the tropic” moderated by Prof. Stephan Pietch (IIASA).

Grau, O., Peñuelas, P., Ferry, B., Freycon, V., Lilian, B., Desprez, M., Baraloto, C., Chave, J., Descroix, L., Dourdain, A., Guitet, S., Janssens, I., Sardans, J., Herault, B. Do soil characteristics determine forest structure and dynamics in poor Amazonian soils? 53rd ATBC 2016, 19-23 June, Montellier, France.

Ramon Margalef’s Prize in Ecology was created in 2004 by the Catalan Government to recognize people, all over the world, who have distinguished exceptionally in the field of ecological science. The award honors the memory of Professor Ramon Margalef (Barcelona, 1919-2004), who made a decisive contribution to establishing modern ecological science, to the point where he is regarded as one of the world’s leading figures in the field.

The Catalan television interviewed him yesterday. You can see the video here: Els Matins de TV3

Lore and Leandro are two PhD students studying French Guiana’s forests for the Imbalance-P project. Want to know more about them, their research, and what is like living and doing science in French Guiana? Then, visit their blog here!

https://lllinfrenchguiana.wordpress.com/

Phosphorus Cycling in Terrestrial Ecosystems: Taking a new approach to advancing our fundamental understanding through a model-data connection

Townsend, Tennessee, USA (May 22-25, 2016)

Aim of the Workshop:

Phosphorus (P) has been shown to limit a number of fundamental processes in a wide range of ecosystems; however, despite its importance, most earth system models do not currently include any manner of the P cycle. This hinders the utility of these models for generating and testing hypotheses and for forecasting the effects of global change. Importantly, a critical challenge for P modeling efforts is also a critical challenge for the scientific community as a whole; namely, determining a way forward for improving our understanding of the key drivers, processes, and global change responses of the P cycle. Bringing together P experts would allow for the addressing of this need through: (1) a more synthetic understanding and conceptualization of P cycle dynamics, (2) the merging of varied P and associated data, (3) improved process-based modeling of the P cycle, and (4) P data-model integration. Another potential success stems from the power of explicit collaborations between empiricists who study P cycling and modelers considering the inclusion of P into models.

Imbalance-P participation:

During the forth session of the workshop, entitled: “Understanding P processes in the context of global change”, Prof. Josep Peñuelas, Prof. Ivan Janssens and Dr. Daniel Goll  presented the some of the results of the ERC Imbalance-P project in the field of experimentation, data analysis and modelling.

The program of the workshop can be accessed here.