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Impact of elevated NItrogen input on the biogeochemistry and productivity of TROpical Forests |
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This Junior Research Group is funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation under its international agriculture and forestry program and awarded to Dr. Marife D. Corre.
Funding period: 3+2 years, starting July 2005
Nitrogen deposition in tropical areas is projected to increase rapidly in the next decades due to increase in N fertilizer use, fossil fuel consumption and biomass burning. As tropical forest ecosystems cover about 17% of the land surface and are responsible for about 40% of net primary production, even small changes in N (and consequently C) cycling can have global consequences. Until now studies on consequences of enhanced N input in tropical forest ecosystems have been very limited and even very rarely addressed its deleterious effects to the environment. There is undoubtedly a huge discrepancy between the expected increase in N deposition in the tropics and the present knowledge on how tropical forest ecosystems will react to this extra input of reactive N. Our research aims at quantifying the changes in processes of N retention (plant growth, biotic and abiotic N immobilization in the soil)
 Lowland forest at Gigante Peninsula, Panama |
 Montane forest at Fortuna, Panama |
and losses (gaseous N losses, nitrification, denitrification, leaching of different forms of dissolved N). Implementation of policy and management tools, like the international trading of carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol, need researches that allow us to better understand the consequences of environmental change (N deposition) on forest productivity. Our research will have important implications for predicting future responses of forest C cycle to changes in N deposition, and for the role of N deposition in tropical forests to affect potential feedback mechanisms of CO2 fertilization and climate change.
Independent Research Group Leader:
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Buesgen Institute - Soil Science of Tropical and Subtropical Ecosystems Georg-August University of Goettingen Buesgenweg 2 D-37077 Goettingen Phone: +49-(0)551 39 5765 Fax. +49-(0)551 39 3310 e-mail: mcorre@gwdg.de |