This Amazon Experiment Ran For Over 20 Years And It Show What May Happen If The Forest Dries Out
The Amazon rainforest is an intriguing subject for most conservationists and environmentalists. The planet highly depends on the dense forest cover of the largest rainforest for resources that extend beyond food, water, and biodiversity. The Amazon jungle plays an important role in stabilizing the Earth’s climate, and recently, it has endured several dry spells, resulting in the loss of biomass and wildlife. To foretell and understand the rainforest’s response to drought and climate change, a team of scientists has embarked on the longest study ever, spanning decades, to simulate how drought affects the Amazon, as reported by AP News.
The 24-year project at Amazon
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.
The next milestone of the project
The scientists have successfully figured out the forest’s response to drought conditions, and it is bleak. However, they still have hope in the future of the Amazon rainforest, considering its ability to adapt and regain its biomass. After 24 years of simulating drought in the plot, the experts removed the plastic covers and observed the changes as they occurred. “The idea is to see whether the forest can regenerate and return to the baseline from when we started the project,” said meteorologist João de Athaydes, vice coordinator of Esecaflor.
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.
More on GreenMatters
The Amazon River Flowed Backwards For Millions of Years — And Scientists Just Found Out Why