Tropical montane forests in a warming world

In spite of the importance of tropical rainforest for global biodiversity and ecosystem ecology regulating biogeochemical cycles, hydrology and climate, these forest in general, and African tropical forests in particular, remain relatively understudied. It has been hypothesised that many tropical species have a narrow thermal niche and operate close to a thermal limit above which they experience declines in function or fitness. However, there is currently little data available to either support or refute this hypothesis. The present project aims to reduce this knowledge gap for tropical montane trees, with the overall purpose of assessing the sensitivity of physiology, growth and competitiveness of tropical montane trees to increased temperature. Multispecies plantations (common gardens) will be established along an elevation gradient in Rwanda, where a step down the gradient represents a possible future warming scenario. Pioneer and climax species from the high and mid elevation sites will be planted at all three locations, allowing for assessments of how both Afromontane rainforest (high elevation) and transitional rainforest (mid elevation) respond to climate warming. Since other environmental factors than temperature co-vary with elevation, the common gardens will include experimental manipulations of water and nutrient availability, with fertilization mitigating site differences in fertility and water being added or diverted depending on the location. By mixing trees of different thermal niches and successional strategies within the common gardens, the study can explore potential impacts of climate change on tree community composition. The investigated responses of the trees range from molecular level and leaf physiology to tree growth and community level interspecific competition. Molecular methods include determination of thylakoid membrane lipid composition, primary metabolites and transcriptional profiling by next generation sequencing. Physiological and tree growth responses are investigated by leaf gas exchange measurements and methodsfor determining biomass of different tree organs. Data will be analysed using analysis of variance. The research team includes participants at the University of Gothenburg (UG), the University of Rwanda (UR) and Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB). Researchers at UG has the overall responsibility for co-ordination of the project, while researchers at UG and UR together supervise the PhD student and field assistant at UR, as well as BSc/MSc students from both universities conducting field research in the project. RAB owns the research stations and have basic lab and technical facilities and staff for maintenance. Year 1 of the project will be used to set up the common gardens at the three sites along the elevation gradient. The actual experiment and the response measurements will be conducted during year 2-5, with main focus on molecular and physiological responses in the early part and responses of growth and inter-specific competition during the later part. The scientific significance and novelty of the present project is the way that it addresses central hypotheses and knowledge gaps in global change biology by combining a unique experimental design with response measurements ranging from molecular mechanisms to community level competition. This experimental design allows us to assess not only how different species respond and acclimate to temperature, but also how interspecific variation in these responses affect tree community composition in a warmer climate. Furthermore, the broad range of response measurements allow for mechanistic understanding of the observed ecological responses. This combination of experimental approaches is novel and offers the potential to generate important new insights into the mechanisms controlling tree and forest responses to global warming. Finally, the proposed project contributes to capacity building at Rwandan institutions, which in turn will pr

Project ID
SE-0-SE-29-2015-03338_1-285-41082
Activity status
2 - Implementation
Aid type
D02 - Other technical assistance
% to Uganda
100.00

Organisations

Funding
Sweden
Extending
The Swedish Research Council
Implementing
Göteborgs universitet

Disbursements by fiscal year, quarter

Fiscal year Fiscal quarter Value (USD) Uganda Value (USD)
2017 Q2 21,060.02 21,060.02
2016 Q2 21,036.64 21,036.64

Commitments by fiscal year, quarter

Fiscal year Fiscal quarter Value (USD) Uganda Value (USD)
2015 Q3 84,146.56 84,146.56

MTEF projections by fiscal year

Fiscal year Value (USD) Uganda Value (USD)

CRS code %
Environmental research (41082) 100.0