Nutrient Limitation In Tropical Forests
Event Type: Seminar
Event Date: 28 Feb 2018
Venue: ASE 3-D Visualization Lab (N2-B1c-16c)
Speaker: Dr. Kelly M Andersen, University of Exeter
About the speaker:
Dr. Kelly M Andersen is a tropical forest ecologist who uses an interdisciplinary approach, combining studies of plant ecology and soil biogeochemistry to understand interactions between plant communities and ecosystem processes. Specifically, her research integrates studies from soil nutrient gradients and manipulation experiments to give insights on how soil nutrients regulate tropical forests, from community assembly, such as species coexistence and distribution patterns, to ecosystem processes, such as carbon dynamics and nutrient cycling. Her scientific interests in tropical ecology began at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where she spent over 10 years in residence. During this time, Dr. Andersen contributed to the establishment of a forest inventory plot network in a premontane forest in western Panama and developed an independent research program examining plant-soil interactions in both premontane and lowland forests. Currently, Dr. Andersen is a Research Fellow with a joint position at the University of Edinburgh and University of Exeter to lead the first large-scale, long-term nutrient addition experiment in a mature tropical forest in Central Amazonia: the Amazon Fertilisation Experiment (AFEX). She is co-advising four master’s students and one PhD student with independent projects within AFEX ranging from leaf physiology and plant-herbivore interactions to root dynamics and nutrient acquisition traits and soil carbon fluxes.
About the event:
Tropical forests are among the most biologically diverse and productive ecosystems in the world. Surprisingly, the tropical soils that support these lush forests are often very low in the nutrients necessary for plant productivity. We will explore soil development, the role of essential nutrients in plants, and how tropical forests cope with low soil nutrient availability. This lecture will give a brief overview of evidence for nutrient limitation in tropical forests, highlighting key findings from classic studies and recent advances in understanding implications of nutrient limitation in tropical forests.
Aims:
1. Why is understanding nutrient limitation in tropical forests important ?
2. What nutrients are most often limiting in tropical forests? Why?
3. How can we test if tropical forests are limited by nutrients?