FOR 816:  Biodiversity and Sustainable Management of a Megadiverse Mountain Ecosystem in Southern Ecuador

• Subject Area: Biology
• Term: from 2007 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 29937865

The Andes of Ecuador are considered as one of the "hottest" hotspots of plant biodiversity, where the mountain forest harbours an essential part of all organisms. At the same time, the country suffers the highest annual rate (4 %) of deforestation in South America, belonging to the "Top Ten" tropical countries regarding deforestation. The major driver of deforestation is poverty especially of the rural population in its striving for an improvement of livelihood. However, the frequently practised non-adapted modes of land-use trigger degradation of the environment and as a consequence lead into a poverty trap or social downward spiral. Degraded landscapes come along with a rapid decrease of biodiversity and the reduction of ecosystem functionality and services. Unfortunately, political decision-makers, which should balance present and future needs of the local population, must frequently work on the basis of rather incomplete ecological information. This holds in particular for the biodiversity hotspot in the tropical Andes of southern Ecuador, the "Reserva Biológica San Francisco" (RBSF), where the research area of the Research Unit is located.
On the basis of the knowledge on the Reserva Biológica San Francisco, which has accumulated over the past ten years and realising that biodiversity is one of the most important ecological factors in the region, the central question of the Research Unit reads as follows: Can we achieve science-directed sustainable land use systems, that at the same time
(1) preserve biodiversity and its underlying ecosystem processes,
(2) rehabilitate attenuated diversity and lost usability, and
(3) guarantee better livelihoods for the local population?
A multidisciplinary approach from life-, geo- and social sciences is indispensable to find answers to the individual questions. To address the interdisciplinary research questions appropriately, all projects work exclusively or at least partly on the 11 km² large core area of the RBSF around the research station ECSF (Estación Científica San Francisco). In particular, interrelations and interactions between organisms and their abiotic environment are examined with field explorations and specific ecological experiments to understand the functionality of the natural and utilised compartment of the mountain ecosystem. Models of selected subsystems are developed to test the impact of various land use scenarios before its implementation.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Austria, Ecuador, Switzerland, USA

Projects

• Analysis and synthesis of palaeoecological data revealing patterns of mountain vegetation and plant diversity dynamics and its response to climate, fire, land use changes in biodiversity hotspots through space and time (Applicant Behling, Hermann )
• Arbuscular mycorrhizal communities in different stages of succession after loss of pristine forest (Applicant Haug, Ingeborg )
• Catchment scale hydro-biogeochemical fluxes and aquatic diversity under global change (Applicant Breuer, Lutz )
• Central data services (Applicant Bendix, Jörg )
• Central Services - Coordination and Administration (Applicant Bendix, Jörg )
• Changes in soil internal N cycle and trace gas fluxes under elevated nutrient input (Applicant Veldkamp, Edzo )
• Development of an agroforestry site classification model (Applicant Makeschin, Franz )
• Effects of nutrient manipulation (NUMEX) on nutrient use and carbon allocation of Andean forests: Stand level response and the performance of single tree species (Applicant Homeier, Jürgen )
• Exploration and consolidation of silvicultural knowledge for sustainable management of forest sites in the South Ecuadorian Andes (Applicant Weber, Michael )
• Forest dynamics, landslide dynamics, and their interactions - a process-based landscape modelling approach for a mountain rain forest in South Ecuador (Applicants Huth, Andreas ;  Schröder-Esselbach, Boris )
• Functional soil landscape modelling in the Andean mountain forest zone: impact of land use and natural disturbances (Applicant Huwe, Bernd )
• Herbivore communities in the Andean mountain forest zone - comparisons within selected plant species along contrasting environmental dimensions (Applicant Fiedler, Konrad )
• Human ecological parameters and their relevance in preserving biodiversity and improving livelihoods in the Biosphere Reserve Podocarpus - El Cóndor (Applicant Pohle, Perdita )
• Impact of land use, natural disturbances and climate change on vascular plant diversity (Applicant Richter, Michael )
• Impacts of environmental change on climate and ecosystem in southern Ecuador (Applicants Bendix, Jörg ;  Nauss, Thomas )
• Interactions of organic matter and microbial dynamics in pasture soils along management chronosequences (Applicant Hamer, Ute )
• Limitations to the growth of epiphytes and the productivity of associated methanogens in neotropical moist forests (Applicant Werner, Florian )
• Long-range transport of nutrients into the mountainous rain forest of southern Ecuador (Applicant Fabian, Peter )
• Market inclusion of ecosystem services: A viable option to achieve sustainable land use in the tropics? (Applicant Knoke, Thomas )
• Mycorrhizal fungi for growth and rehabilitation of orchids of a tropical mountain rain forest in southern Ecuador (Applicant Kottke, Ingrid )
• Origin, diversification and maintenance of mycorrhizal fungi of Ericaceae in a mountain ecosystem of southern Ecuador (Applicant Setaro, Sabrina )
• Origin, diversification and maintenance of mycorrhizal fungi of Ericaceae in a mountain ecosystem of southern Ecuador (Applicant Setaro, Sabrina )
• Response of element cycles in a tropical mountain rain forest to environmental and land-use change (Applicant Wilcke, Wolfgang )
• Root and mycorrhizal responses to nutrient additions in a tropical mountain forest and in pastures after forest conversion (Applicant Rillig, Ph.D., Matthias C. )
• Spatially explicit and institutionally extended valuation of ecosystem services (Applicant Barkmann, Jan )
• The biology of southern bracken in the anthropogenic ecosystem in the San Francisco valley of South Ecuador (Applicants Beck, Erwin ;  Bendix, Jörg ;  Scheibe, Renate )
• The role of arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM) in the establishment of rainforest tree seedlings, and the application of AM fungi for reforestation approaches (Applicant Schüßler, Arthur )
• The soil fauna of a tropical montane rain forest: regulatory forces and functioning in the decomposer system (Applicant Scheu, Stefan )
• Tree growth and wood anatomy along elevational and nutritional gradients in tropical forests in southern Ecuador (Applicant Bräuning, Achim )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Jörg Bendix