Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
In 1923, scientists began research on tropical biology on Barro Colorado Island, in the former Panama Canal Zone. It has now become one of the longest-running programmes devoted to tropical biology and, since 1946, it has been led by the Smithsonian Institution. For more than 25 years, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) has been doing research around the world on tropical forests, including how forests respond to climate change. STRI's Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) coordinates research activities in tropical zones around the world.
To read more about STRI and its research, please visit: http://www.stri.org/.
STRI and the HSBC Climate Partnership
The HSBC Climate Partnership will enable CTFS to expand its research to an integrated system of Global Earth Observatories. More tropical plots will be added and temperate plots and measured for the first time, providing a more complete picture of the effect that climate change is having on biodiversity around the world. The partnership will also allow the research to expand into industrial and economic concerns, including studies of the carbon budget of the world's forests, and analysis of the role of forests in regulating fresh water in the environment.
Through the partnership STRI will establish a global baseline picture of the ecosystem which will allow for accurate conclusions about the effect of global warming and climate change on the world's ecosystems.
Project Outlines
As part of the HSBC Climate Partnership STRI aims to:
| Objectives | Achievements to date: |
|---|---|
| Forest Dynamics Plots: create more forest plots in both temperate and tropical zones to study the role that forests play in global carbon levels and how global warming affects their well-being. | Established four temperate-zone plots in Brazil, North America, and the UK which are yielding data that will help scientists predict the effects of climate change on forests. These plots represent nearly 100 hectares of temperate forest that are being protected and conserved for long-term scientific study. |
| Research on carbon pools: studying where the carbon is in the system and how it moves through the system, from the atmosphere, to plant biomass, and the soil. | Developed large components of a global scientific infrastructure of expertise, equipment, partnerships, and methodologies to study the carbon fluxes of tropical and temperate forests around the world. |
| Investigate the water-storage services provided by tropical forests. This research will be focused in the Panama Canal Watershed to understand how land-use decisions impact the storage and release of water in the environment. | STRI has reforested over 100 hectares in the Panama Canal Watershed with 140,000 seedlings. Using a the latest innovation, STRI is monitoring the Panama Canal watershed, gathering the data needed to model and predict tropical-ecosystem responses to climate change. |
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Related case studies
A significant field experiment on climate change, Panama Watershed
As part of the HSBC Climate Partnership, STRI scientists are investigating how forests respond to climate change.
