Brazilian and British scientists launched Esecaflor, short for ‘Forest Drought Study Project,’ a one-of-a-kind study, in 2000. The longest-running experiment was set up in an endeavour to map the forest’s precise reaction to drier climatic conditions– a likely situation to come up soon. Therefore, the team of researchers set up camp in the Caxiuana National Forest, Brazil, and put two identical plots of land, one hectare each, under observation. While they left one plot untouched, the other was subject to intense human intervention, where they mimicked drought conditions to collect data on the forest stress. 6,000 transparent plastic rectangular panels were installed above the trees to divert 50% of the rainfall from the forest floor.
Instruments and metal tags were attached to the trees and buried underground to measure a myriad of factors like soil moisture, air temperature, sap flow, tree growth, and root development. Two towers monitored by NASA radars measured the water content to determine overall forest stress. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California processed the data. “The forest initially appeared to be resistant to the drought," said Lucy Rowland, an ecology professor at the University of Exeter, per U.S. News. However, the initial response from the drought forest began to change after 8 years, showing a massive decline in biomass and tree mortality. 40% of the total weight of the vegetation and carbon was lost. The results are included in a study published in the journal Nature.
It is difficult to understand how drought influenced the soil ecosystem in the rainforest, but their drought simulation has hit parallels with the Amazon forest’s response to the El Niño effect and climate change in the past two years, per the source. Rowland revealed, “We’re seeing a loss of the forest’s ability to absorb carbon. Instead, carbon is being released back into the atmosphere, along with the loss of forest cover.” This becomes a cause for concern because of the world’s dependence on the oxygen released by the Amazon, while it endures forest fires every year.
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