Tropical forests are hotspots of terrestrial biodiversity. The loss, fragmentation and degradation of these forests are drivers of global biodiversity loss and have important implications for the global climate system. Uncertainty in how the tropical biosphere will respond to global change is one of the major constraints on predicting the climate of the end of this century and therefore in assessing threshold values of greenhouse gas emissions that may avoid dangerous climate change.
The Human Modified Tropical Forest (HMTF) research programme aims to integrate experimental and observational data with models to understand the role of biodiversity in major forest biogeochemical cycles, explore the spatial correlations between ecosystem function in terms of biogeochemical cycles and the distribution of species that are of conservation concern, and develop new technological capabilities for sustainable long-term observations of biogeochemical cycling in forests.
The programme involves 3 research consortia (BALI, ECOFOR and LOMBOK).