Profile

As Professor of Ecosystem Science at the School of Geography and the Environment and Programme Leader of the Ecosystems Group at the Environmental Change Institute, my research interests focus on interactions between tropical ecosystems and the global atmosphere, with a particular focus on their role in global carbon, energy and water cycles, and in understanding how the ecology of natural ecosystems may be shifting in response to global atmospheric change.

I have a particular interest in the combination the diverse disciplines of ecological and forest field surveys, micrometeorological field techniques, satellite remote sensing, global atmospheric data, and vegetation-atmosphere modelling.

In 2007 I jointly co-ordinated an international conference on "Climate change and the fate of the Amazon" attended by over 100 international scientists. Listen to podcasts and view powerpoints from the conference here.

Research Interests

I lead an active and expanding Ecosystems Dynamics Lab, which currently hosts six postdoctoral researchers and thirteen DPhil researchers.

The broad scope of my research interests is the impact of global atmospheric change on the ecology, structure and composition of terrestrial ecosystems, and in particular temperate and tropical forests. This research addresses fundamental questions about ecosystem function and dynamics, whilst at the same time providing outputs of direct relevance for conservation and adaptation to climate change. A particular new focus is on the role that the international carbon markets and climate change framework can play in protecting tropical forests.

We apply a range of techniques including field physiological studies, large-scale and long-term ecological monitoring, satellite remote-sensing and GIS, ecosystem modelling, and micrometeorological techniques.

We have a particular focus on tropical forests, and an extensive ongoing research programme in Asia, Africa and particularly across the Amazon and Andes region. We also have an expanding network of research in temperate woodlands in the Upper Thames region

Some of our research group's "discoveries"...

• Tropical rain forests can by affected by drought after only a week with little rain, and this drought has a direct effect on photosynthesis and carbon fluxes.
• The biomass of tropical forests is increasing across the tropics and forests are accelerating in both growth and death - this discovery was based on collation of field studies and direct fieldwork
• Tropical ecosystems (and probably another undisturbed ecosystems) are shifting in composition (e.g. in liana frequency), probably in response to rising atmospheric CO 2 . These are the first such measurements in undisturbed systems.
• To measure the daytime turbulent transfer of water above a forest it is necessary to consider transport at time scales of up to four hours, much longer time scales than those usually considered.

Current active grants

• RAINFOR: Monitoring forest carbon cycling across the Amazon forest. Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, £750,000 as a part of £2.3 million consortium , Feb 2008-Jan 2012
• AMAZONICA: Amazon Integrated Carbon Analysis, NERC, £220,000 as part of £2 million consortium grant, Jun 2008-Jun 2012
• Modelling cloud forest-climate interactions in the tropical Andes, Microsoft Research, £180,000, Feb 2008-Jan 2010
• A climate change and carbon observatory in woodlands of the Upper Thames Area, Earthwatch/HSBC Bank, £200,000, Jan 2008 – Dec 2011
• A detailed assessment of carbon dynamics along a tropical forest altitudinal transect, £600,000, NERC, Principal Investigator, July 2006 – June 2009
• Tropical biomes in transition, £140,000 in consortium proposal of £1.5 million, NERC, co-investigator, Jan 2006 – Dec 2010
• Conservation implications of climate change and fire in the eastern Andes: inpacts on plant distributions and montane ecosystems, $250,000 within joint grant of $800,000, 2006-2008, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
• Assessing the impacts of the recent Amazon drought, 2005, NERC Urgency Grant, £28,000 in a joint proposal of £150,000.
• Quantifying the Earth’s carbon cycle, £66,000 within a consortium grant of £1,000,000, 2006-2007, the QUEST programme (NERC), 2004-2008
• Accelerated tree growth in Amazonia: ecological changes and environmental drivers, £220,000, NERC, Co-investigator, 2004-2007
• Why do different Amazonian forests grow at different rates? £260,000, NERC, Principal Investigator, 2004-2007

Recently expired grants

• A project for the advancement of networked science in Amazonia, EU Sixth Framework ENRICH programme, Principal Investigator, 400,000 euros, 2004-2007
• Surface-atmosphere exchange in complex terrain, £257,000, NERC, Co-Investigator, 2004-2007
• What drives the seasonality of tropical forest photosynthesis?, £30,000, NERC, Principal Investigator, 2003-2004
• The response of the tropical forest carbon cycle to El Niño, 2002-2003, NERC, £30,000
• An intensive study of the carbon dynamics and ecophysiology of mangrove forest, 2002-2003, NERC, Principal Investigator, £28,180.
• Changing tropical forest dynamics: a critical evaluation of physical, chemical and biological drivers, £140,545, 2000-2003, NERC, Joint Principal Investigator (with Oliver Phillips, University of Leeds).

Recent Publications

A full list of Yadvinder's publications are available on his website.