Terrestrial Ecology Interests in a Brazilian Study

Abstract

Changes in land use and land management practices are responsible for some of the more significant global change impacts that humans have affected world-wide. Conversion of tropical forest to various agricultural uses reflects a current significant set of land use changes that may have pronounced regional and global impacts. Of particular concern are the effects of land conversion on trace gas fluxes and the carbon dynamics of tropical ecosystems. The NASA Terrestrial Ecology Program would like to focus its contribution to a future research program in the Brazilian Amazon on the following question.