Please can anyone help me to identify suitable field sites?
I plan to make a study of plant competition by elevation and need relatively intact elevation gradients that go all the way from tropical forest to the high elevation treeline. But as we would need to revisit sites regularly it'd be best if there was easy access to the gradient (road or similar). Easy access and low human impacts is not a combination anywhere I know but may be associated with certain sites, e.g., roads to mountain top telecommunication stations in National Parks or similar. (I don't mind some localized disturbance if we can find intact sites readily enough).
All suggestions welcome!
Hi Douglas! I work in a place ubicated in the tropical forest of Costa Rica (Central America) called CATIE (www.catie.ac.cr). It´s an institution dedicated to research and high education, and i did my M.Sc. research on altitudinal gradients here in Costa Rica (Zamora, J.C. 2011. Implications of the climate change for the storage of carbon and the richness of species in natural forests in Costa Rica. Thesis M.Sc. Turrialba, Costa Rica. CATIE. 70 p.). Now as an indirect consequence of my thesis, there is a project site in an altitudinal gradient (part of a regional project CLIMIFORAD www.climiforad.org) that is destinated to understand the effects of climate, soil and vegetation over the ecosistemic process, among others themes. It has the characteristics that you seek, and there is 5 more thesis projects developed, and others working in this moment. If you want more detail information you can contact to the project responsibles here in CATIE: Bryan Finegan ([email protected]) and Luis Diego Delgado ([email protected]), or visit the page http://catie.ac.cr/en/forests/work-units/ecology-chair and search in "areas of work". I hope that this answer will be helpful.
Cheers,
Dear Juan Zamora Pereira and Aria Tsam
many thanks to both of you for the kind suggestions. Those look promising.
I wonder if anyone else has ideas please? It doesn't have to be a super wet region ... site access and protection are key. I would really like to replicate the study (and spread the risks) among several sites if I can find them.
thanks again
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Bioecology
- Systems Ecology
- Landscape Ecology