Tree measurement, Salonga National Park (Democratic Republic of Congo). Credit: Simon Lewis University of LeedsAn international network of researchers works together to monitor the health of tropical forests around the world.ForestPlots.net is a co-ordinated project from the University of Leeds. It brings together over 2,500 scientists who have examined millions of trees in order to study the effects of climate change on forests, biodiversity, and the environment.The origins of the network and the impact of collaboration on forest research in Africa, South America, and Asia are explained in a new paper published in Biological Conservation.This paper contains 551 researchers. It outlines 25 years worth of research in the carbon, biodiversity, and dynamics of tropical forest forests.Professor Oliver Phillips from Leeds' School of Geography said, "Our new paper illustrates how we are linking students with botanists, foresters, and policy-makers using the ForestPlots.net technology created at Leeds."This is the driving force behind a new model for collective research. This is transforming scientific understanding of tropical forests and how they contribute to climate change."In this new synthese, we describe how this collaboration was built and trace the exciting potential for collaborative science that reaches across world's tropical forests in order to embrace colleagues of all backgrounds."ForestPlots.net is a unique way to monitor and understand the forests around the globe, especially those in the tropical regions.It was established in 2009 and has since grown to track 5,138 plots across 59 countries with a network that includes 2,512 people.Amazon Forest canopy at dawn in Brazil Credit: Peter van der SleenThis collaboration was funded by the Royal Society and UK NERC. It aims to encourage cooperation between countries and continents and to allow partners to access, analyze, and manage information from long-term plots.Professor Phillips states that the core approach of their research links grassroots long-term researchers to produce robust, large-scale results."This diverse, global community measures thousands of forests tree by tree in long-term plots."Our Social Research Network model of Research seeks to support key workers in 21st-century big data science by connecting researchers from tropical countries and valuing their key role as data originators in scientific discovery.ForestPlots.net hosts data of many researchers and networks, including AfriTRON and ECOFOR as well as PPBio, RAINFOR and TROBIT.The network works together in an equitable manner and has made scientific discoveries around the world by showing that long-term monitoring on the ground of forests is irreplaceable.ForestPlots.net's researchers have used large-scale analysis to discover the causes and consequences of climate change on biodiversity and forest carbon. They also show how ForestPlots.net can help to control it by providing a billion-ton annual carbon sink.This new paper, "Taking the pulse of Earth’s tropical forests using networks and highly distributed plots", provides a vision of a more integrated and equitable monitoring system for Earth’s most valuable ecosystems.This collaborative paper is especially timely because it highlights the contributions Leeds and other research partners made to understanding carbon dynamics in tropical forest before the global climate conference COP26 which will take place in Glasgow in November.Learn more Evolutionary diversity is linked to Amazon forest productivityForestPlots.net and others, Biological Conservation (2021), Taking the pulse from Earth's tropical forests through networks of highly distributed plots. Information from the Journal: Biological Conservation ForestPlots.net et.al, Taking the pulse Earth's tropical forest using networks of highly distributed parcels, (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108849
