Woods Hole Research Center

Boreal Forest & Arctic Tundra Dynamics:

The circumpolar boreal forest is an integral part of the global ecosystem, with important influences on the global cycling of energy, carbon and water. Over the past 30 years, global boreal forests have experienced a significant amount of warming and drying which, if trends continue as predicted, are likely to induce feedbacks that may further influence global climate. The goal of the Woods Hole Research Center’s work in this region is to quantify the magnitude and variability of carbon exchange, assess the mechanisms by which fire disturbance influences these processes, and characterize how changes in these ecosystems respond to and are influencing climate.

Fire and Carbon Sequestration in Boreal North America:

One focus for Woods Hole Research Center scientists studying boreal North America explores how carbon sequestration rates following fire vary across the entire boreal forest region on an inter-annual basis. This work requires accurate measurements of carbon fluxes at fine spatial and temporal scales over large areas. Field studies bring WHRC researchers to a number of different locations throughout the North American boreal region. Conducting research in northern, southern, and central boreal zones allows the observation of ecosystem processes across a wider range of landscape types, and allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the North American boreal system.

Conserving Biodiversity and Sustainably Managing the Lower Amazon Floodplain Regional Ecosystem through a Regional Co-Management System:

The Amazon varzea, the core area of the Amazon floodplain, is one of the largest and most biodiverse tropical wetland systems in the world. It has also been a major focus of human settlement and economic activity for much of the human history of the basin. Its fertile soils and abundant plant and animal resources supported some of the densest and most politically complex societies in the Amazon basin. The scientists and technical staff of the Woods Hole Research Center and the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) are working with floodplain communities, grassroots organizations and key government agencies, to develop a multi-scale co-management system integrating floodplain settlements, grassroots organizations and municipal, state and federal land tenure and management agencies.

Community Forestry and Sustainable Livelihoods along Brazil’s Tapajós River:

Community forestry is widely regarded as a promising strategy through which smallholders can increase income and improve quality of life, while conserving local forest resources. One such initiative is the Caboclo Workshops of the Tapajós. This approach combines small-scale, technologically and organizationally simple production of high quality finished products for green consumer markets. Since the early 2000s, the Woods Hole Research Center and the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) have worked with traditional communities on the shores of the Tapajós River to develop forest management systems supplying local furniture workshops.

Feedbacks between Water and Deforestation in Tropical South America:

Tropical South America contains the world’s largest continuous tropical forest and savannah ecosystems. This region has undergone explosive development and deforestation in the last 50 years. Already about 60 percent of the savanna and about 10 percent of the rainforest in this large region have been converted to cattle pasture and agriculture. Deforestation and forest degradation result in a complex set of changes to climate and the water balance at small and large scales; increasing runoff, sediment flux and stream flow and potentially altering rainfall patterns. Woods Hole Research Center scientists are leading field and computer-based projects to better understand the consequences of these changes and possible mitigation strategies.

Linking Land-Use Change to Economic Drivers and Biophysical Limitations of Agricultural Expansion in the Brazilian Cerrado:

The cerrado, or savanna, ecosystem is the second largest biome of tropical South America. Although deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has received much attention, most of the Brazilian deforestation has taken place, and continues to take place, in the savanna environments outside of the Amazon basin. In this project, a team of Woods Hole Research Center scientists and collaborators, including remote sensing experts, economists, hydrologists, and biogeochemists, will quantify the socio-economic drivers of sugarcane expansion, the amount of cerrado land suitable for sugar, the potential trajectories of future deforestation, and the environmental impacts of land-use change.

Promoting Good Land Stewardship through the Registry of Social-Environmental Responsibility:

The Registry of Socio-environmental Responsibility (RSR) is an initiative of the Aliança da Terra (AT), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), and the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) that unifies property owners who commit to responsible land stewardship in Brazil. Begun in 2006, the RSR creates a link between the growing demands for responsible land use practices coming from commodity markets and demands from the emerging carbon market for reductions in carbon emissions from deforestation.

Understanding Fire in the Brazilian Amazon:

Fire is an important agent of transformation in the Amazon landscape. It is used as a management tool for agricultural lands but it often escapes into neighboring forests and causes ecological damage that is not well documented or understood. Since 2004, the Woods Hole Research Center and the Amazon Environmental Research Institute have been conducting experimental burns on 150 hectares of forest on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. Researchers are learning how these accidental fires may affect the vigor, health, and biodiversity of these forests, whether recurring fire may threaten the very existence of the forest through regional climate feedbacks, and how the regional carbon balance is affected.

Understanding the Influence of Agricultural Expansion on the Water, Energy, and Climate Cycles in the Brazilian Amazon

Agricultural expansion in the Amazon basin impacts both local and continental hydrological cycles. A small number of observational and modeling studies currently suggest that deforestation leads to large changes in the energy and water balance at small to large scales. This also causes ramifications for the climate of the much larger Amazon basin because it increases runoff and decreases local rainfall. This project explores that key issue through an instrument installation and data collection campaign at Fazendo Tanguro, a collaborative field research site located in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Understanding the Forest Carbon Cycle in Harvard Forest:

Forests are an important component of the global carbon cycle. Each year, they withdraw carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and release it to the atmosphere through both plant and microbial respiration. The processes of photosynthesis and respiration are strongly affected by climatic conditions, particularly temperature and precipitation. With a changing global climate, the role forests play in the uptake and release of carbon could be altered. At the Harvard Forest, in western Massachusetts, Woods Hole Research Center scientists are measuring soil respiration and examining the effects of climatic variables through long term plots and amendment experiments.

Understanding Human Impacts on the Chesapeake Bay:

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America, encompassing a 168,000 sq. kilometer watershed that covers parts of six states and the District of Columbia. The mixing of salt and freshwater in the Bay creates a diverse and complex ecosystem, which historically has supported thousands of migratory and resident species, including oysters, blue crabs, shad, herring, and waterfowl. The numbers of fish and wildlife that the Bay once supported has diminished drastically due in part to overharvesting and disease, but pollution from urban runoff, agriculture, and inadequate sewage treatment has caused a serious decline in water quality. Because the conversion of natural resource lands to developed land cover poses a significant threat to the Chesapeake Bay, Woods Hole Research Center scientists have focused efforts on simulating and predicting urban and suburban land use change.

Studying Carbon Sequestration in Howland Forest:

Woods Hole Research Center scientists and collaborators from the United States Forest Service, University of Maine, Queen’s University, and Harvard University are studying the forest near Howland, Maine, to measure carbon sequestration -- the amount of carbon that the forest accumulates in trees, deadwood and soil -- and the conditions that favor carbon. This work furthers the understanding of how climate and management affect the rate at which forests store carbon, both now and in the future. The Northeast Wilderness Trust purchased this 558 acre tract of mature forest in 2007, securing it for conservation and ensuring that studies can continue in this unique eastern old-growth forest.