Postdoc, Elsa Ordway (Paul Moorcroft Lab) teamed with Greg Asner, Director of Arizona State University's Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science to investigate the impact of edge effects on forest structure and tree canopy characteristics along boundaries between lowland rainforests and oil palm plantations in Malaysian Borneo. One of the many consequences of tropical deforestation includes forest fragmentation, a process that involves dividing forests into smaller and smaller pieces, creating new borders between habitats. These borders are exposed to different environmental and biological conditions, called "edge effects", less favorable than conditions within forest interiors
In their study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ordway and Asner found widespread evidence of major changes in forest structure along forest edges, as well as changes to three important canopy traits related to a tree’s ability to capture sunlight and grow (foliar phosphorus, leaf mass per area, and foliar nitrogen). Tropical forests hold approximately 25% of the world's carbon in their trees and plant species; when they are burned, all of that carbon is emitted into the atmosphere. The vegetation that acts as #carbonsinks disappears causing important global implications. Without rainforests, climate scientists warn, the global-warming consequences could be catastrophic. Harvard Magazine
Image: The blue regions are oil palm plantation, while the forest regions (yellows and greens) are colored by tree height, which is a proxy for carbon. Image courtesy of Global Airborne Observatory, ASU Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science