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EFFECTS OF EPISODIC DROUGHTS AND FIRE ON THE CARBON CYCLE OF AMAZONIAN VEGETATION: FIELD RESEARCH AND MODELING OF A NEAR-TERM FOREST DIEBACK By PAULO MONTEIRO BRANDO A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Paulo Monteiro Brando 2 To my parents, my brother, and my friends 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am most thankful to my advisor for his major influence on my intellectual development during my PhD. I also thank Daniel Nepstad for challenging every finding, word, and result I present here. Most of all, I thank all of those that rendered this thesis a synthesis of years of collaborative field research and modeling efforts. Among this very special group of people from several research groups I want to name a few: Eric Davidson, Mike Coe, David Ray, Britaldo Soares-Filho, Rafaella Silvestrini, Herman Rodrigues, Paul Lefebvre, Paulo Moutinho, Pieter Beck, Alessandro Baccini, Oswaldo Carvalho, Claudia Stickler, Scott Goetz, Wendy, Kingerlee, Marcos Costa, Ane Alencar, Adilson Coelho, Osvaldo Portella, Oswaldo Carvalho, Raimundo Quintino, Val, Osmar, Wanderley Rocha, William Riker, Darlisson Nunes, Bati, Sandro, Bibal, Marcia Macedo. Especial thanks to Ben Bolker, Mary Christman, Leda Kobziar, Wendell Cropper, Ted Schuur, Yadvinder Malhi, Scott Saleska, and Jennifer Balch for their various contributions to my dissertation. I thank Allie Shenkin, Fay Ray, and all my friends in Gainesville for their support during all these years and helping to make my experience in the United States an enjoyable one. The Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazonia (IPAM) and Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) provided essential institutional support for my PhD. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 8 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 9 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 13 2 DROUGHT EFFECTS ON LITTERFALL, WOOD PRODUCTION, AND BELOWGROUND CARBON CYCLING IN ANAMAZON FOREST: RESULTS FROM A PARTIAL THROUGHFALL REDUCTION EXPERIMENT. ....................... 16 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 16 Methods .................................................................................................................. 18 Site Description and Treatment Design ............................................................ 18 Aboveground NPP, Tree Mortality, and Soil CO2 Efflux ................................... 18 Statistical Analysis ............................................................................................ 19 Results .................................................................................................................... 20 Soil Water ......................................................................................................... 20 Mortality and Necromass .................................................................................. 20 Stem Growth and Wood Production ................................................................. 21 Litterfall and Carbon Dynamics ........................................................................ 21 ANPP................................................................................................................ 22 Correlates of ANPP and LAI ............................................................................. 22 Soil CO2 Efflux ................................................................................................. 22 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 23 Response and Recovery of ANPP ................................................................... 23 Belowground Carbon Accumulation ................................................................. 26 Carbon Stock Accumulation and Forest Recovery ........................................... 28 3 EVALUATING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INTERANNUAL CLIMATIC VARIABILITY AND ABOVEGROUND CARBON STOCKS IN AMAZONIA ............ 38 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 38 Methods .................................................................................................................. 40 Model Description ............................................................................................. 40 Input Data ......................................................................................................... 41 Experimental Runs ........................................................................................... 42 Analysis ............................................................................................................ 42 Results .................................................................................................................... 43 5 CARLUC Predictions for TNF ........................................................................... 43 Experimental Runs: Tree Mortality and NPP Allocation ................................... 43 Specific Regions and Field Plots ...................................................................... 44 Total Carbon Stocks ......................................................................................... 44 Climate and Carbon Pools ................................................................................ 45 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 45 4 SEASONAL AND INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF CLIMATE AND VEGETATION INDICES ACROSS THE AMAZON ................................................. 57 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 57 Methods .................................................................................................................. 60 MODIS Data ..................................................................................................... 60 EVI Surrounding Meteorological Stations ......................................................... 61 Site-specific Analysis ........................................................................................ 61 NBAR-EVI and EVI-Product ............................................................................. 62 Climate ............................................................................................................. 63 Statistical Analysis of EVI and Climatic Variables ............................................ 63 Basin-wide (mixed vegetation types) ......................................................... 63 Densely forests areas ................................................................................ 64 Hierarchical partitioning ............................................................................. 64 Relationship of the variability of EVI with PAW .......................................... 65 Results .................................................................................................................... 65 Spatial-temporal Patterns of EVI ...................................................................... 65 Basin-wide Climate ........................................................................................... 66 EVI and Climate Variables ................................................................................ 67 Spatial analysis across the Amazon Basin................................................. 67 Spatial-temporal analysis in densely forested areas .................................. 70 Site-specific Analysis ........................................................................................ 71 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 72 5 POST-FIRE TREE MORTALITY IN A TROPICAL FOREST OF BRAZIL: THE ROLES OF BARK TRAITS, TREE SIZE, AND WOOD DENSITY .......................... 83 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 83 Methods .................................................................................................................. 86 General Approach and Site Description ........................................................... 86 Modeling Cambium Insulation .......................................................................... 86 Linking Tree Mortality and Cambium Insulation (R) .......................................... 88 Modeling Tree Mortality ...................................................................................... 89 Tree mortality and cambium insulation ...................................................... 89 Other correlates of fire-induced tree mortality ............................................. 91 Results ...................................................................................................................