The PELD-PECJ LTER site is designed to serve as the core site for a network of LTER sites in South America.
The PELD-PECJ2020 research programme integrates across academic disciplines to implement a social-ecological research agenda and to inform conservation authorities to harmonise conservation management and the use of ecosystem services. For this, the impacts of climate change, atmospheric deposition of nitrogen, the invasion by species of the exotic conifer Pinus and the pressures of land use change in and around the Park are researched by an inter- and transdisciplinary team.
Post-1960 changes in land use and land cover and fire disturbances detected from remote sensing are used to estimate the dynamics of biomass carbon stocks and sequestration. The diversity of landscape, hydrology, soils and land cover are related to biogeochemical cycles in native forest stands, commercial timber plantation and open grassy-shrubby vegetation. Modelling and experimental studies provide up-to-date information on the potential impacts of atmospheric N deposition and climate change on ecosystem structure and function, as well as on ecosystem services. The impacts of land use (tourism in the Park) and the change in land cover (clearcutting of Pinus plantations and the restoration of the cleared areas to native vegetation) are being considered to minimize logging impacts on biodiversity and optimise potential benefits of multiple ecosystem services. The results of the above research are combined with land use management and conservation scenarios built with local and regional stakeholders - formalised using agent-based modelling - and used to create decision-aid tools for conservation managers and for municipal decision makers.
The work programme
Research is organised into four Work Packages (WP 1-4) and supported by a fifth (long-term data collection activities).
WP1 - Climate change, land use and vegetation dynamics integrates empirical and modelling by experimental and observation studies supplying data for parameterization and validation of dynamic global vegetation models (DGVM). Four subprojects will provide data/information to parameterise and validate the model '2D-aDVGM-PECJ', spatially explicit model to be developed from 2D-aDGVM, to study the spatio-temporal dynamics of forest-open grassy shrubland mosaics:(1) history of fires will provide information on events and frequency of fires and changes in land use and cover in the PECJ since 1960, to verify the importance of fire and land use on moulding the structure of landscape (mosaic of forest vs. open grassy shrubby vegetation); (2) ecoclimatic modelling and will provide ancillary information on climatic and hydrological limitations (historical, current and future forecasts) for the growth and potential distribution of the tree life form; (3) through experimental and ecophysiological characterisation of functional traits of native and exotic / invasive tree species and will contribute data / information to improve the parameterisation of the 2D-aDGVM model (and an additional two DVGM models); (4) ecohydrological investigations will contribute data for the parameterization of models (water availability / use and rooting depth).
WP2 - Global change and biogeochemistry is organised around two models, the DGVM JULES (Joint UK Land Environment Simulator) and the Biome-BGCMuSo, two models that will be applied for the first time in neotropical mountain forests. This WP will integrate the various components of the carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles investigated in stand-alone projects (exchange of energy and matter (CO2 and H2O) between atmosphere and biosphere and between soil and atmosphere, atmospheric inputs of N, storage and flows in ecosystems, and outputs by hydrological and gaseous losses). It is foreseen that there will be collection of data on flux of energy and matter, validated by on the ground biomass measurement data, litter production and data on gas fluxes between soil and atmosphere (soil respiration and N2O, CH4 fluxes); these will be complemented by data on the atmospheric dry and wet deposition of N, the movement of N along the soil profile and its output via watercourses.
WP3 - Ecosystem services and participatory management focuses on modelling the social-ecological system. The knowledge derived from WPs 1-2 will be used as input information to quantify ecosystem services and evaluate, based on the management plan and perceptions of stakeholders whether the desired objectives of conservation and foreseen uses of ecosystem services are being achieved. An inter- and transdisciplinary 'multi-stakeholder' team will identify all stakeholders involved, the ‘resources’ and their dynamics, and the interactions among stakeholders, their demand/use of resources and the impacts of use on the functioning of the system to propose, through participatory management, models and implementations of conservation management and management of ecosystem services.
WP4 - Biodiversity and trophic structure - climate and land cover includes several complementary funded research projects. They include (1) an experimental investigation of the impact of climate change (temperature and precipitation) on the trophic structure in bromeliad 'tanks'; (2) interactions between soil microorganisms and the focal species of conservation Araucaria angustifolia; (3) spatiotemporal use of habitat by felids; and (4) the dynamics and passive aerial transport of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a pathogen lethal for anurans.
WP5 - Long-term data collection activities include (1) meteorology (AWS, historic data curation), (2) atmospheric chemistry, (3) water physico-chemistry (precipitation, stream water), (4) soil (mapping, physio-chemistry, soil solution) (4) vegetation (biometrics, permanent plots, historic data), (5) fluxes of energy and matter between biosphere and atmosphere, (6) biodiversity pilot survey, and (7) butterfly monitoring.