Abstract ID: 255

The spatial patterns of forest disturbance in Amazon

The natural disturbance in Amazon forest was complicated; especially the spatial pattern of the disturbance is poorly studied so far. This is not only due to the complex of rainforest, but also the poor understanding of the spatial variation of disturbance factors. Here we preliminary studied the spatial variation of forest mortality and disturbance factors related to precipitation (drought and convective storms). The mortality from limited field plots (from 1976 to 2001) was transited to the entire Amazon forests using the changes of Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from satellite image of MODIS (2000-2007). Finally, a correlation and significance p-value maps were generated based on the simulation. A moving window was applied to calculate the local correlation between the mortality and annual precipitation (1901-1998). High mortality values were found in forests of northwestern and southeastern Amazon. The mortality in northeast forests had positive correlation with annual precipitation, which may indicate the effects of convective storms; while in south Amazon forests had negative correlation with the precipitation indicating the impacts of droughts. This kind of methodology provided a new tool to analyze the spatial pattern of forest disturbances, and can be also applied to analyze the spatial pattern of other disturbances and ecological phenomena.

Session:  Carbon - Forest dynamics, natural disturbance, and recovery.

Presentation Type:  Poster