The Cordillera Forest Plot Network is understood to be just one contributing part of a larger network which includes remote sensing of forests, glaciological studies, weather stations, social sciences, studies of land use and land cover changes and many more. Every discipline adds a piece to the mosaic.

 

Research goal (defined in the Cordillera Transect Workshop on 7 April 06):

 

To predict the structure, composition and distribution of forests in the light of global change and to propose management strategies to mitigate hazards affecting forests, such as wild-fires, diseases and mass moves (from the GLOCHAMORE Research Strategy, published by MRI in Dec. 2005).

This goal will be achieved through two complementary approaches: monitoring an extensive network of forest plots, and remote sensing of forests.

 

Refined goal of the forest plot network:

 

• Establish a transect of forest plots along the American Cordillera.
• With this transect: Detect changes. Monitoring data as the ground truth for remote sensing data.
• Better understand forests on a large scale; understand how they react to global environmental changes.
• Make people realize that we can learn a lot more about forests if we collaborate.

 

A first big step is the COFOR website which has been online since November 2007 thanks to the effort of Alvaro Duque and financial support from MRI.

http://www.corfor.com

 

Contact:

Alvaro J. Duque M., Ingeniero Forestal, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Medellín

> ajduque@unalmed.edu.co

Nate Stephenson, Research Ecologist, USGS Western Ecological Research Center

> nstephenson@usgs.gov 

To join the forest plot network 

 Download the project description for potential partners. (246 kB)

Please fill out the  Excel file (22.5 kB). The information can be filled in either one or both excel sheets. The first worksheet is named “General_Data”, which contains the main information. If you want to give more detailed information, you can complete the second worksheet named “Additional_Data”.

Publications

 Continental-scale patterns of canopy tree composition and function across Amazonia (367.07 kB)

Ter Steege, H., et al (2006). In: In: Nature, Vol 443|28 September 2006, pp 444-447.

The history of CORFOR

 At the 7 April 2006 Cordillera Transect Workshop in Mendoza, Argentina, several people identified themselves as participants in the Cordillera Forest Plot Network. Since then, Alvaro Duque and Nate Stephenson have been active and successful in contacting additional institutes and people associated with forest monitoring:

Fernando Gast, the director of the National Institute in charge of biodiversity in the Colombian Andean region wants to get involved with the American Cordillera Transect.

Mauricio Alvarez and Adriana Prieto, who are in charge of the floristic inventories and forest monitoring within the Instituto Alexander von Humboldt (IAvH), will give the project a maximum of support and are going to collaborate with plots (1-ha) already established.

The IAvH and the Forest Science Department of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia are planning to choose 30 1-ha plots in Colombia, in order to start with the plot-network proposed during the meeting in Mendoza.

Stuart Davies, the new director of the Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) said that the transect of mountain forest plots could complement those networks already created by CTFS and RAINFOR (1-ha plots networks in the lowlands, mainly Amazonian).

Other contacts in Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, and Bolivia are still awaiting an answer.

U.S. Forest Service, Oregon State University, and the University of Washington are monitoring more than 100,000 trees in 145 plots in Oregon and Washington. The director of the network, Kari O'Connell, is happy to join the Cordillera transect of forest plots.

CORFOR is working with Tom Veblen, University of Colorado, with the goal to make his data available upon request.

The initiative is very much appreciated by the people contacted. 

Challenges

For the time being the challenges are not of scientific but of “human” nature – everybody is busy and it is difficult to invest time in something new, however important it may be.

Also, scientists have put a lot of work in their data, and they are often nervous about making it accessible to everyone. Therefore it cannot be a short term goal to concentrate data in one large database. Once people see the value of sharing the data this might get easier. But for the foreseeable future, control of all data will remain with those who collected the data. This would only change with the explicit permission of scientists.

Next steps

A. Sell the project

by:

• defining the rules of participation, e.g., describe the format of the data needed,
• producing a 1-2 page document to describe and sell the project (content: goal, “rules”, and names/institutions associated with the Forest Transect),
• contacting more people in South and Central America and in Canada,
• setting up a proper Forest Transect Website.

 

B. Structure it:

Directory of the Cordillera Forest Plot Network
(this can be a simple list)

• who has what kind of information
• where is it stored, how to access it
• under which conditions can other scientists use the data

(RAINFOR operates like this)

Visions

 In a better future there would be funding for a Cordillera Forest Plot Network – office, and of course, for some research activities within the plot network.

 

Participants:

 

Julieta Carilla
Uni. Nac. de Tucuman
Argentina
> julietacarilla@yahoo.com.ar

 

Marco Cortes
Uni. de Temuco
Chile
> macorb@gmail.com

 

Glen Jamieson
Mount Arrowsmith BR
Canada
> info@mountarrowsmithbiosphere.ca

 

Thomas Kitzberger
Uni. Nac. de Comahue
Argentina
> kitzberger@gmail.com

 

Carlos Llerena
Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALM)
Peru
> callerena@lamolina.edu.pe

 

Jennifer Lipton
University of Texas
USA
> jenlipton@mail.utexas.edu

 

Fernando Salazar
IDEAM Colombia
Colombia
> fsalazar@ideam.gov.co
> fersalazer@cable.net.co

 

Jason Sibold
Columbia University
USA
> jason@baddogranch.org

 

Lylieth Varela Fagúndez
Ciudad de Cali
Colombia
> lylietha@yahoo.com

 

Ricardo Villalba
IANIGLA
Argentina
> ricardo@lab.cricyt.edu.ar