III LBA Scientific Conference Oral Sessions
Sessions	Chairs	Titles	Descriptions
Research Highlights Session- 1	TBA, Saulo Freitas	Physical Climate and Atmospheric Chemistry	highlights
Research Highlights Session- 2	Jeff Richey, Humberto Rocha	Carbon, Biogeochemistry, and Hydrology	highlights
Research Highlights Session- 3	Diogenes Alves, Emilio Moran	Land Use and Human Dimensions	highlights
Special Session -2	Christopher Potter, Jon Foley, Carlos Nobre, Marcos Costa	A Decade of Progress in Modeling Productivity, Carbon Cycling and Surface Hydrology Across the Amazon Basin	LBA investigators have spent nearly a decade working within the international community to develop simulation models of ecosystem productivity and land surface hydrology for the Amazon Basin. Such models began as relatively coarse-resolution representations of the Amazon region with high uncertainties, but have gradually improved to include more detailed representation of patterns in climate drivers, land cover change, deforestation rates, secondary forest regrowth, intensive agriculture, and numerous other variables. This session invites overview presentations which demonstrate the evolution of these simulation modeling approaches, andsummarize cross-disciplinary progress in the refinement of model predictions and in our understanding of sources of model uncertainty at the regional level.
Special Session - 3	Rong Fu, Tércio Ambrizzi	Role of Amazon ecosystem in determining regional and global climate variabilties	LBA has led to unprecedented advancements in understanding the ecosystem, land surface hydrology and aerosols and their influences on local atmosphere and globalterrestrial carbon. Rapid progress has also been made through large-scale climate process studies, for example, in terms of understanding the roles of the internal land surface changes versus large-scale circulation changes from external forcings such as ENSO for controlling interannual variations of the Amazonian rainfall. New observations have also enabled us to detect the remote influences of the Amazonian rainfall, thus confirming the theoretical predictions first made by Brazilian scientists. This session aims to synthesize some of these new findings. It solicits the latest results from ecologists, hydrologists, physical climatologists and atmospheric physicists and chemists focus on "whether and how land surface changes will shift the precipitation regime?" It also solicits studies of the regional and global impacts of Amazonia land surface changes.
Special Session - 4	Johannes Lehmann, Daniel Markewitz, Alex Krusche, Chris Neill	Soil Control on Stream Biogeochemistry	This session will highlight the influence of soil physical and chemical processes on the biogeochemistry of streams in the Amazon Basin and similar environments. Participants will present research on nutrient and carbon dynamics in soils and how these affect inputs of solutes to streams as well as stream processes themselves. Movement and transformation of elements in unsaturated as well as saturated soil should be covered. Contributions dealing with both solutes as well as gases are welcome. The spatial scale stretches from small- to medium-size watersheds to include the effects of land use changes.
Special Session - 5	Alfredo Huete, Laerte Ferreira, Yosio Shimabukuro	Terra / Aqua MODIS Data and Products for LBA Science: Current Results and Opportunities for Data Integration and Synthesis	The 4 years of MODIS sensor time series data onboard both the Terra and Aquaplatforms is increasingly being recognized as a valuable tool for integrationand synthesis of LBA science across the Amazon basin and adjoining cerradoregions. The MODIS data products include land cover, land cover change, landsurface temperature, fire, albedo, and a variety of biophysical data products(VI, LAI, FPAR, NPP) that are useful for quantitative and consistent regionalestimates of carbon dynamics and for monitoring land cover change andrates of recovery resulting from forest, cerrado, and wetlands disturbance andconversion activities. In this session we invite oral and poster presentations on theopportunities and uses of MODIS data across all LBA science themes and inscaling, regional synthesis, and integration studies across the AmazonBasin.
Special Session - 6	Yadvinder Malhi, Oliver Phillips, Jon Lloyd	Variation of forest ecosystem processes across Amazonia	How do forest ecosystem properties and processes (vegetation biomass, structure, composition and dynamics, trace gas exchange, carbon dynamics) vary across the Amazon Basin, including regions outside of Brazil ? How do the results from field studies compare with model predictions or remote-sensing estimates, and what are the causes of any discrepancies ? Contributors to this session will report the results from comparative studies comparing multiple field sites (e.g. eddy covariance studies, forest plots) or basin-wide analysis such as results from remote sensing studies or model outputs. Contributions are welcomed from field studies, ecosystem or dynamic vegetation models and remote sensing analyses.
Special Session - 7	Eustaquio Reis, Marcellus Caldas	Roads, Land-Cover and Land-Use Changes in Brazilian Amazon	Roads are often regarded as a primary, if not the primary, factor in tropical deforestation. This view, however can be exaggerated. At basin wide level, econometric studies based upon historical municipal data suggest that the direction of causation between roads and deforestation is open to controversy. Furthermore, at local level, the manner in which roads alter the environments is not easily described. Fieldwork suggests that certain kinds of road may be built in the wake of deforestation, to respond to colonist demands for transportation services. In any event, the time has come to take stock of our knowledge of the relationship between transportation networks, land-cover and land-use changes, which will be the theme of this special session. At both micro and macro level, dicussions will take historical and geographical perspectives.
Special Session - 9	Jose Marengo, John Roads, Edson Paulinho da Rocha, Marcos H. Costa, Charles Vorosmarty	Water and Energy and Balances of the Amazon Basin	This session is dedicated to the Water and Energy Balances in the Amazon basin. The session will include presentation of the estimates of the water and energy balances using different data sets (reanalysis and in situ observations), the issue of the closure and uncertainties of these balances, prediction and predictability studies of the components of the water and energy balance, validations of in-situ observations from the LBA-reference sites with grid point estimates from the water balances from models and reanalyses. The subjects also include analysis of the water and energy balances for future climate change scenarios, to detect the possible impacts of land use change and greenhouse gases concentrations on Amazon's during the XXI century. These session is highly relevant to the observations), the issue of the GEWEX and CEOP science agendas.
Special Session - 10	Marcos S. Buckeridge, Carlos Prado, Fábio R. Scarano, Carlos A. Martinez, Marcos P.M. Aidar, Marília Gaspar, Antonio Mauro Saraiva	Ecophysiological and biochemical responses of tropical plants to elevated CO2	The climatic changes in course in our planet are a result of a complex relationship among several factors at different levels of organisation. The response of the system to the changes driven by an abnormal increase of carbon dioxide, from the atmospheric phenomena to ecological, cellular and molecular levels, have to be understood to such an extent that will permit a forecast and, if necessary, interference in the system to minimise impact.The aim of the section is focused on the biological side of the system. Talks and posters will show and discuss recent results on photosynthesis, growth and biochemical responses to elevated CO2, of tropical plants native to the Brazilian rain forests, Savannah and also of sugar cane. This information will be essential to understand how the whole system works and will certainly integrate well to the LBA atmospheric investigation.
Special Session - 12	Scott Saleska Carlos Souza	Natural disturbance events and tropical forest ecology and biogeochemistry	Natural disturbance events (from large-scale ENSO cycles, to storm-induced blowdowns, to individual treefall gaps) play a critical role in the ecology and biogeochemistry of tropical forests. Hence, predicting tropical biogeochemical processes (or even obtaining accurate estimates of their current status) at the landscape or basin scale depends critically on:(1) understanding how biogeochemical processes (e.g. carbon balance and nutrient dynamics) depend on local disturbance status and history; and (2) accurate characterization of the patterns of disturbance events across space and time, and the mechanisms which generate those patterns. Talks could focus on: (a) PROCESS: e.g. the dynamics of vegetation regeneration and succession in gaps (due to either mortality or selective logging), the effects of drought on mortality, and recovery from fire; (b) MEASURES of disturbance (tree canopy height, CWD amount; local abundance of indicator species such as gap colonizers or lianas) and METHODS for characterzing such measures (ground based methods such as CWD or ground-based lidar data; aerial photography or LVIS; satellite based such as IKONOS); and (c) MODELS to integrate (a) and (b).
Special Session - 13	Daniel Nepstad, Britaldo Soares, Ane Alencar, Carlos Nobre, Rosimeiry Portela	Integrating land use change, ecosystem responses, and climate systems in the Amazon Basin.	This session would report upon progress made in building an integrated approach to Amazon economies (agriculture, forestry, ranching), ecosystems (response to disturbance, response to climate), and climate (global and meso-scales processes). The session will focus upon: (1) the architecture of an integrated model, (2) integration of spatially explicit, econometric and rent-based models of land-use change, (3) estimation of the threshold of deforestation beyond which rainfall inhibition begins, (4) the positive feedbacks between drought, land-use change, and savanization, and (5) response of modeled trends todifferent policy scenarios.
Special Session - 14	John Melack, Jeff Richey	Carbon exchanges between aquatic environments and the land and atmosphere	The complementary efforts of regional hydrological-biogeochemical models and remote sensing of inundation and aquatic vegetation, and extensive field measurement campaigns are providingresults that will permit evaluation of recent reports of the importance of land-to-water and water-to-air exchange of carbon dioxide and methane to the basin-wide carbon balance.
Special Session - 15	Paulo Moutinho, Daniel Nepstad, Patrick Meir, Gina Cardinot, Bart Kruijt	Drought effects on forest carbon dynamics: results from rainfall manipulation experiments.	This session would report upon progress made in understanding the effects of drought on Amazon forests as revealed by three major throughfall manipulation experiments.  These experiments are providing important new insights into the effects of rainfall regime on the allocation of net primaryproductivity, photosynthesis, soil respiration, and other processes.  These experimental resultshave not yet been compared.
Special Session - 18	Mateus Batistella, Eric Davidson, Rita Mequita, Dar Roberts, Bill Salas	Secondary forests in the Amazonian landscape: Field studies and remote sensing studies that advance our understanding of the spatial, temporal, and biogeochemical dynamics of secondary forests	Secondary forests are becoming increasingly important as transient locations of habitat, carbon and nutrient sequestration, and evapotranspiration. Secondary forests are key to crop rotations of small farmers. Recuperation of degraded lands often involves a period of fallow secondary forest vegetation. The rates of regrowth of these forests vary depending on soil type, climate, and management histories. One LBA synthesis product has been produced regarding the factors that limit rates of regrowth of secondary forest in Amazonia. Additional efforts have been initiated. The objectives of this special session will be to review the synthesis products that are in progress, to advance these efforts, and to explore additional efforts to synthesize the research results of LBA investigations of secondary forests.
Special Session - 19	Foster Brown, Ruth Defries, Jeff Morisette, Wilfrid Schroeder, Dalton Valeriano	Accuracy Assessments and their Implications for Fire and Deforestation Monitoring	Estimates of deforestation and fire from satellite data are produced onan operational basis, yet confusion regarding the interpretation and use ofthese products remains in both the scientific community and the generalpublic. Variations in sensor characteristics, algorithms, viewing geometry,and overpass times can generate a wide range of estimates for fires anddeforestation. Assessing the magnitude and cause of the uncertainty in thevarious deforestation and fire detection products can aid in theirinterpretation and use. Prior to the LBA meeting (July 25), members of LBAwill conduct a one-day workshop to develop protocols for establishing errorbars for fires and deforestation detection in the Amazon, the results ofwhich will be presented in this oral session. Other studies that focus onlocal and regional validation of deforestation and fire products or on theimplications for modeling land use are encouraged to submit abstracts aspart of this session on accuracy assessment for deforestation and firemonitoring
Special Session - 21	Meinrat O. Andreae, Jose Vanderlei Martins, Paulo Artaxo	Impact of aerosol particles on the Amazonian climate	The interactions between natural and biomass burning aerosols with the Amazonian climate will be explored in this section. The alteration of cloud formation mechanisms and possible perturbation of precipitation processes due to the high aerosol loading during the burning season will be discussed.Changes in the atmospheric radiation balance and it possible impacts on photosynthesis will also be explored. Results from the LBA/SMOCC experiment will be reported, as well as other experiments in this area.