1/5 #TropiCon21 Large rivers are integral to Amazonia, and their associated wetlands are a key maintainer of biodiversity and carbon cycling & they are essential to support the majority of people living in the Amazon. Yet wetlands are rarely included in climate-ecosystem models.
2/5 #TropiCon21 Amz wetlands are under immediate threat by climate change, deforestation and hydropower damming. Dams cause profound changes to the ecosystems (doi.org/10.1002/aqc.35…), and so do deforestation and climate-related changes that are known to be already happening.
3/5 #TropiCon21 We know little about forest assembly/function in Amz wetlands. Correlative studies show inundation dynamics and trophic levels strongly influence species composition. But what are the eco-evo mechanisms behind it? At what spatial / temporal scales do they operate?
4/5 #TropiCon21 Amazon wetlands existed for millions of yrs and recent studies place water-related adaptations as a key trait for tree survival. We expect multiple functional survival strategies to exist but we don't know yet how varied/plastic these are, so we can't model them.
5/5 #TropiCon21 Soon we'll start an experiment combining functional traits, #LiDAR and flood monitoring to understand survival strategies at individual tree level! By addressing the absence of wetlands on ecosystem models, we can prevent them from becoming absent from our future!
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