Long term monitoring
Tomakomai Experimental Forest is embedded in international and national monitoring projects. Long term monitoring can reveal what the response of ecosystems is to climate. Ultimately when we can understand the mechanism that are work we can predict how the ecosystems respond to future climate. In Tomakomai Epxerimental Forest one of the topics we focus on is:
Carbon balance of forest ecosystems
In a forest, through photosynthesis, green vegetation takes up carbon from the air, when the green vegetation dies and becomes litter, for example the yearly returning leaf fall, carbon enters the soil in litter. Where it can accumulate, runoff into rivers, degradate or, through soil microbial respiration, carbon returns to the air. To understand the function of a forest in the carbon cycle, its role and response to the carbon dioxide concentrations in the air, and its future response to climate change we try to elucidate the mechanisms within the forest ecosystem.
This is done at different scales e.g. by measuring the diameter growth of trees, scaling up processes from leaf photosynthesis to forest canopy, soil respiration rates, water quality of rivers, eddy covariance tower for carbon dioxide monitoring. The forest is very well facilitated especially for research in the canopy and the river. The results of such and other research are obtained and shared within various networks and programs.
In Tomakomai Experimental Forest such as:
International Geosphere-Biosphere Research Program (IGBP)