Ecosystem Laboratory

The Ecosystem Laboratory, led by Yadvinder Malhi, seeks to understand what makes contemporary ecosystems; and how they may be affected by direct human pressures and global atmospheric change. The tools we employ in our research include:

• Intensive field observation of carbon, water and nutrient cycling; vegetation and soil properties; plant ecophysiology; and climate.
• Multi decadal and large scale monitoring and analysis of ecosystem structure, composition and dynamics.
• Quantitative modelling of ecosystem ecophysiology and biogeochemical cycling.
• Satellite remote sensing at local, regional and global scales
• Macro-ecological analysis of plant function and traits.
• Our interests are global, but we have particularly active research in the lowland tropical forests of Amazonia and Africa, the montane forests of the Andes, and the temperate woodlands of the UK.

Projects

• Global Ecosystem Monitoring Network

  The Global Ecosystem Monitoring network (GEM) is an international effort to measure and understand forest ecosystem functions and traits, and how these will respond to climate change.

• ECOLIMITS

  ECOLIMITS is a consortium project looking at ecosystem services in Ghana and Ethiopia.

• Burning for Biodiversity

  Burning for Biodiversity in Africa is a project bringing together biodiversity research with capacity building and external communication to promote effective fire and conservation management in South African savannas.

• Indigenous Ecotourism Enterprises

  This project identifies best practices in the development of indigenous ecotourism from a social entrepreneurial and cultural-institutional perspective.

• LandCor Matlab routines

  LandCor is a set of Matlab routines that facilitate the use of the 6S radiative transfer code in the correction of a satellite scene that accounts for varying atmospheric conditions.

• Avoided Deforestation.

  ECI plays a leading role in understanding the dynamics and ecology of such forests, and is involved in large-scale monitoring projects within the Amazon region to better understand the ecological and climatological changes taking place in these important regions.

• RAINFOR – Amazon Forest Inventory Network

  An international network established to monitor the biomass and dynamics of Amazonian forests.

• LBA Project: Amazonia's large scale atmosphere-biosphere experiment

  This network aims to create the knowledge necessary for understanding the climatological, ecological, biochemical, and hydrological interactions and functioning of Amazonia; and the impacts of landuse change on these functions.

• Real-time deforestation detection project - INPE

  This project uses remote sensing to locate land cover changes in lowland rainforests through the detection of new deforestation bigger than 0.25km²