| Home | Partners | Services | Projects | Events | Publications | Contact |
Partners
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
The Edinburgh station of CEH carries out research on air pollution, climate change, and sustainable land use in the tropics. The focus is on the science underpinning land-atmosphere exchange of trace gases, process-based ecosystem modelling and the development and exploitation of new technologies in the tropics. Within the tropical forests section, research is focused on the sustainable management of forest and agricultural land in the moist and dry tropics, reconciling the needs of small-scale farmer livelihoods with international global public goods and services. Work is aimed at the better management of forests and the restoration of degraded land by the development of agro-forestry and other alternatives to non-sustainable land uses.
SEEDSOURCE project
FOREAIM project
ACACIAGUM / Marie Curie Fellowship
SEEDSOURCE project
The overall objective of SEEDSOURCE is to provide best practice policies for sourcing tree germplasm for use within a range of degraded landscapes to ensure the use of best adapted material, that maximises production without eroding genetic and ecosystem diversity and long term adaptive potential. The project started in 2005, with work programmes beginning in Brazil, Ecuador, French Guiana and Costa Rica. During the first year a series of major rangewide collections of samples from 15 species of neotropical tree have been initiated, and large scale reciprocal transplant experiments - based on patterns of genetic structure and ecological differentiation - have been put in the ground. Genetic analysis of several major progeny trials has also begun to examine impacts of maternal landscape context on seed crop quality.
FOREAIM project
The FOREAIM project, targeting forest ecosystems in Kenya, Uganda and Madagascar, aims to provide tools and management strategies to enable restoration of degraded humid forest ecosystems by advancing our understanding of the mechanisms of forest degradation/restoration and their potential impacts on local populations, policy makers, governments and markets. The project is broadly multidisciplinary and involves CEH personnel in a range of studies. During 2006, study plots were identified within each target country, encompassing a gradient from cleared agricultural and to intact forest. Within these plots, functional group analysis of vegetation at each site, and a study of mycorrhizal diversity across gradients have been initiated. In addition, work to assess degradation and reforestation impacts on genetic diversity and gene flow in Prunus africana has started and a training workshop demostrating equipment for monitoring of soil erosion has taken place in Nairobi.
ACACIAGUM / Marie Curie Fellowship
ACACIAGUM, a major new project, has been secured with an expected start date in early 2007. The project will target the gum-producing species Acacia senegal to encourage and refine patterns of use of the species as an agricultural component, aiming to mitigate land degradation and soil fertility depletion in arid and semi-arid Africa and provide supplementary income generation and ecological benefits. The project will use a multidisciplinary approach focusing on: the socio-economic viability of the 'gum arabic' commodity chain under different tree management and/or site conditions (climate and soil type) on (1) tree eco-physiology and gum production; (2) tree genetics and gum quality and production; (3) biological soil-tree interactions and tree-crop interactions. In parallel a Marie-Curie Fellowship has been secured to allow a Kenyan researcher to carry out a 2-year post-doctoral study at CEH focussing on the genetics underlying A. senegal provenance variation.
