TITLE: Ecology projects and acronyms
DATE: 2022-01-19
AUTHOR: John L. Godlee
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We had our first big meeting of the SECO Project last week, where
the different core working groups shared their ideas and did some
planning for the year ahead. During the meeting, I started noting
down the many acronyms that were being banded about to describe
networks of survey plots, researchers, and databases.

 [SECO Project]: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/seco-project/

SECO

reSolving thE current and future Carbon dynamics of the dry
trOpics. SECO isn't really a real acronym, but the word SECO is the
Spanish word for "dried", which makes sense because the project
aims to improve understanding of the carbon cycle, particularly the
woody biomass component, in "dry tropical" vegetation, i.e.
savannas, dry forests, possibly shrublands, across the world.

 [SECO]: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/seco-project/

SEOSAW

the Socio-Ecological Observatory for Southern African Woodlands.
SEOSAW is a network of researchers and plots across southern
African savanna/woodlands. The remit is broad, simply to understand
the response of southern African woodlands to global change, to
provide an infrastructure for researchers to conduct their research
across the region, and to facilitate collaborative research. I've
spent a lot of time working on SEOSAW stuff. My PhD used the SEOSAW
database, and I was employed for about 6 months as a research
assistant to work on databasing for the project.

 [SEOSAW]: https://seosaw.github.io/

RAINFOR

Not really an acronym, but is used as a shorthand for the Amazon
Forest Inventory Network. The project has developed a very rigorous
framework for long-term monitoring of rainforest ecosystems, based
around repeat inventory of permanent forest plots. They work with
partners across Amazonia to maintain these plots and to train
scientists in the relevant methodologies. RAINFOR developed the
mortality codes which are used as a base for the SEOSAW and
ForestPlots.net databases to record mortality.

 [Amazon Forest Inventory Network]: http://www.rainfor.org

DRYFLOR

More focussed on floristics than biomass dynamics, the DRYFLOR
project is a network of researchers aiming to improve understanding
of seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTF) in Latin America. Dry
forests are very poorly protected compared to wet forests, and as a
result are highly fragmented and often degraded by agriculture, yet
they contain many endemic species and are highly diverse. DRYFLOR
aims to promote conservation of these under-appreciated ecosystems.

 [DRYFLOR]: http://www.dryflor.info/

DRYFour

A bit of a pun on the more well-known DRYFLOR. I heard Jennifer
Powers talking about her DRYFour network of four dry forest
monitoring sites in Central America during a seminar she was
giving. The plots are located in Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico
and Colombia. They did lots of hydraulic trait measurements and
measured dry forest structure to understand how hydraulics varied
across different dry forests.

 [Jennifer Powers]: https://cbs.umn.edu/contacts/jennifer-s-powers

TROBIT

TROpical Biomes In Transition was a NERC funded project which ended
in 2009 that looked at what drives changes in vegetation structure
across wet-dry transitions in the dry tropics. Basically the
transitions from wet forest to savanna. I think they did a lot of
work on CO2 exchange and eco-physiological measurements. I don't
think they established plots during the project, but I don't know
much about it.

AfriTRON

the African Tropical Rainforest Observation Network. AfriTRON is
similar to RAINFOR in that they aim to do long-term monitoring of
rainforests through repeat plots, but they operate mainly in West
Africa and the Congo Basin, with a few plots in Tanzania. Another
interesting aspect of AfriTRON is that they work on peatlands which
are a major carbon store in the central Congo basin.

 [AfriTRON]: http://www.afritron.org/

ForestPlots.net

While not an acronym, it's important to include this in the list,
as many of the other projects listed have some connection to
ForestPlots.net. FP hosts data from AfriTRON, RAINFOR, SEOSAW,
other networks, and many individual researchers. FP provides a
database for storing tree plot data, metadata about the plots, and
some auxiliary data like soils and traits.

 [ForestPlots.net]: https://www.forestplots.net/

NATT

the North Australian Tropical Transect. The NATT is one of TERN's
plot transects which runs from near Darwin south through the
Northern Territory down to what I think is just a line of latitude,
or possibly a mean annual precipitation contour at about 500 mm/yr,
not really sure.

 [NATT]: https://www.tern.org.au/natt-the-backbone-of-nt-research/

TERN

the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Operating in Australia,
TERN combines many different data collection techniques to monitor
Australia's ecosystems, including permanent tree survey plots, eddy
flux towers, phenology cameras, LiDAR, soil, hydrology, all sorts.
TERN is supported by the Australian government and at least from my
limited experience with their platform is an incredibly well
developed monitoring system. I suppose it is easier to achieve when
the whole continent is one country.

 [TERN]: https://www.tern.org.au/

TERN run AusPlots, also known as the ATN (Australian Transect
Network), a subsidiary that maintain a national network of
permanent plots, which are divided into transects, of which the
NATT is one.

 [AusPlots]: http://www.ausplots.org/our-transects-atn

TmFO

the Tropical managed Forests Observatory is unusual compared to
other networks operating in the same moist tropical forest
vegetation in that they focus only on understanding the long term
effects of logging on these ecosystems. Thus, their plots are
spread across managed forests, plantations, areas previously
felled, areas likely to be felled, and they also have plenty of
experimental sites. This is one of the few networks with a decent
number of sites in southeast Asia.