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Exploration of rainforest
canopy biodiversity: development of a new site for integrated
pure and applied canopy research in Costa Rica
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Last modification: 12 November 1996
Nota Bene: this page is moved to
http://www.inter.nl.net/users/bioproca.html. Please update your
links and bookmarks. Soon the current URL will not be valid
anymore.
Welcome to our WWW-infopage! Your hosts are Gabriël Beckers and
Koen Verhoeven. Here, we offer information on the development of
a long-term study platform for both pure and applied canopy
investigations.
This document consists of the following parts:
•Canopy biology: exploring the world's natural tresasury
•Canopy biodiversity and sustainable development
•Towards a new and specialized tropical canopy research site
•What's new? •The site •The station •What can
you do? •Other Internet-sites of interest
As our homepage is updated every once in a while, you may want to
visit it again to keep informed about the progress (add it to
your Bookmarks!).
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Canopy biology: exploring the world's natural tresasury
The canopy is that part of a forest which exists of the
aggregation of its tree crowns. In tropical rainforests the
canopy generally rises 30 to 50 metres above the forest floor
level, but emergent trees may reach 70 metres or more. The canopy
intercepts a large proportion of the daily sunlight, as much as
99%, which is the primary energy source for the synthesis of
complex biological compounds.
Canopies, especially those of tropical rainforests, are difficult
to access and are among the most poorly understood eco-systems on
our planet. In the last two decades, however, good methods for
accessing the canopy have been developed, which has provided
biologists with the opportunity of making important progress in
the understanding of canopy organisms and their interactions.
Scientific research to date indicates that tropical rainforest
canopies are very complex ecosystems and extremely biodiverse.
They provide habitats that contain literally millions of species
that are rarely or never found on the forest floor. It has been
estimated that the canopy of tropical rainforests houses from 40%
to perhaps as much as 95% percent of all plant and animal species
on Earth. The preservation and investigation of the rainforest
canopy should therefore be recognized as having top priority in
biodiversity conservation, a subject of global concern (e.g.
Agenda 21).
In recent years there has been a significant growth in the number
of published studies on canopy research. Scientific canopy
communities are evolving at international levels (e.g. the
International Canopy Network and the European Tropical Canopy
Research Network) and special canopy research programs have been
launched. It is clear that for an increase in both quantity and
quality of canopy studies, specialization together with these
higher levels of organisation are prerequisites. Also, the
development of good research facilities, improvement of access
techniques, and education will play an important role in the
development of canopy science.
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Canopy biodiversity and sustainable development
Making the rainforest economically profitable in an ecologically
sound and durable way is widely considered as a key strategy in
the conservation of rainforests. All over the tropics,
researchers and conservationists are trying to develop
sustainable ways of utilizing rainforest resources in order to
create realistic alternatives to deforestation. The rainforest
canopy has hardly been involved in these endeavours yet. However,
the extraordinarily rich canopy biodiversity could yield
unsurpassed opportunities for sustainable utilization: among the
millions of canopy species, many products can be found that are
of value to man, like ornamental epiphytes, medicinal species, or
genetic resources for biotechnological and agricultural use. If
these items could be brought within reach for sustainable forest
management, an innovative and fundamental contribution to these
endeavours would be made.
Ideas to open up the rich canopy potential for ecologically sound
utilization have recently been advanced at the Wageningen
Agricultural University, The Netherlands, under the name of
canopy farming (c). The canopy farming concept is new and
innovative, and has yet to be implemented in practice. Applied
research and pilot projects in the field of canopy farming are
planned for the near future. These challenging efforts could
initiate an entirely new direction in sustainable silviculture
which lets the canopy play an important role in rainforest
conservation.
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Towards a new and specialized tropical canopy research site
The core of the plan that we propose is the development of a
well-equipped and locally managed biological Long Term Research
Site with a main focus on the tropical rainforest canopy. At this
site, fundamental scientific studies as well as research projects
for the sustainable use of rainforests will be integrated. The
most commonly used facilities for canopy access will be offered,
such as tree climbing equipment, tree observation platforms, and
suspension bridges. A 3-D rope-web will be constructed, and also
planned are automated 2-D or 3-D access systems. In addition, the
station will offer other supporting facilities that are necessary
for efficient biological field research.
Initial development of the canopy research site will be
parallelled by the realization of a multi-year canopy farming
pilot project which is planned in the area. Canopy farming is
envisioned to form a priority area of research at the site, to
which other fundamental and applied canopy research studies might
be directed.
Gabriel J.L. Beckers and Koen J.F. Verhoeven, both biologists
with experience in tropical rain forest research in Costa Rica,
will undertake the developing and local managing of the research
site and its programs.
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What's new?
The uniqueness of our plan, which we intend to develop at
SelvaTica, Costa Rica, lies in a number of favorable factors and
possibilities that we can combine for the development of a
successful site.
•The smart combination of pure and applied canopy studies is
innovative and mutually beneficial. Applied canopy farming
projects can provide a challenging framework for more fundamental
canopy studies, which in turn stimulate the successful
development of canopy farming as a new direction in sustainable
silviculture. •The site SelvaTica, which we have at our
disposal for the development of the project, is very suitable for
various reasons. The pristine rainforest borders a large
protected area and is accessible in 3-4 hours from an
international airport by 4x4 vehicle. Very high annual
precipitation (more than 7 m) combined with the absence of a dry
season causes a very rich epiphytic canopy community.
Infrastructure already exists at the site, and a village is
nearby (2 hours). The relative vicinity of La Selva Biological
Station could allow for various co-operation possibilities.
•The station, which is already present at the site, will be
well equipped, specifically for canopy research. The most
frequently used and generally affordable equipment will be a part
of the standard station inventory. •The continuous presence
of canopy facilities, as well as experienced canopy researchers,
make the site suitable for educational purposes (e.g. training of
biologists who are inexperienced in canopy techniques, or the
organization of specialized canopy courses or workshops).
•The country, Costa Rica, is very well-suited for a
specialized canopy research and education site. Historically,
Costa Rica has a good record concerning biological research and
conservation. The acquired scientific data hould forma proper and
essential basis for the specialized field of canopy biology.
Costa Rica is politically stable and combines the advantages of
both a well-developed society, good infrastructure, and
excellent, pristine tropical natural resources.
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The site
The Costa Rican corporation SelvaTica S.A. holds 712 hectares of
tropical rainforest, ranging from 530 to 720m above sea level, on
the Caribbean slope of the Cordillera Central, 41 kilometres
north of San José.
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We co-operate with SelvaTica to realize the above outlined idea
of developing a canopy research station. We have been granted the
use of their property, including the lodge "El
Plástico" and adjacent facilities, for the development of
our project.
For a number of reasons SelvaTica's property will prove very
suitable for the development of a canopy research site.
Following Holdridge's classification of world life zones or plant
formations, based on climatic data, latitudinal regions and
altitudinal belts, the site consists of tropical wet to tropical
premontane rainforest. The average minimum and maximum
temperatures are 18C and 27C respectively and show little
variation throughout the year. Precipitation is very high: since
daily monitoring of rainfall was started in the area in January
1991, an annual average of 7,7 m has been received, giving rise
to a very rich epiphytic flora. Being located on the Atlantic
slope of the Cordillera Central, the site does not experience an
effective dry period. Nevertheless, the amount of precipitation
decreases during the period from December-April, and peaks in
July-August. In addition, the area has a generally favorable
working climate (no malaria mosquitoes, comfortable temperatures
etc.).
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It is a large area consisting of 80% magnificent primary
rainforest (see for yourself (96Kbytes)), 15% secondary
rainforest and 5% pasture. This does not only allow the
opportunity to study undisturbed rainforest, but it also offers
opportunities for the study of "disturbed ecosystems",
a field which is becoming an important topic in rainforest
research. The area is known for its high biodiversity: for the
species groups studied, the area ranks among the most biodiverse
sites in Costa Rica. Adequate infrastructure is already present
at the property: the basic lodge El Plástico, a roofed working
floor, a road for access and a trail system.
The forest of SelvaTica is situated suitably, as it is adjacent
to the large (45,000 ha) Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo. This
ensures that the forest cannot be isolated and remain as a small
patch of forest in a large deforested area, which has been the
unfortunate fate of some other research areas. For the same
reason the forest can be considered as very pristine (even the
large mammalian predators are reported there), unlike some other
sites. To the south, SelvaTica is adjacent to the 700 ha-property
of Rara Avis, a Costa Rican organization which focuses on
ecotourism and conservation.
The site is accessible from the nearest village, Las Horquetas,
via a dirt road, a 12 km journey which takes about two hours by
4x4 vehicle. A trip from the capital San José to Las Horquetas
takes about one hour, so in effect the site is three hours away
from the nearest international airport.
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The station
A basic, lodge-style building called 'El Plástico' is already
present at the site and is currently used by the
eco-tourism/conservation organization Rara Avis and by OTS for
field courses (OTS = the Organisation for Tropical Studies). It
can accommodate up to 15-20 researchers and has basic lavatory
and kitchen facilities. Minor modifications and extensions are
planned to improve the existing facilities.
A laboratory floor is a prerequisite. The laboratory inventory is
planned to include all basic facilities: e.g. microscopes,
balances, pH-meter, lux-meter, necessary chemicals, refrigerator
etc. A shade-house will be constructed.
Most important, the station will have canopy access equipment.
Several complete sets of climbing gear, tree platforms,
suspension bridges, and a 3-D rope web will most likely satisfy
the initial needs. Eventually these facilities can be
supplemented with new automated canopy access devices. These
could be developed in co-operation with Dr. Donald Perry, who
introduced single rope tree climbing techniques to canopy
research and who developed several automated canopy access
systems for eco-tourism in the direct vicinity of the
SelvaTica-area.
We will set up a computer system for storage and re-use of all
collected scientific data at the site. This idea has been applied
at La Selva Biological Station (run by OTS) for a number of years
and proved successful. The system ensures that potentially
valuable primary data will not be fragmented. The computer system
also provides Internet access for direct communication with the
rest of the world and information access. For the use of
computers at the field site we will depend on electrical energy
supplied by a number of solar panels.
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What can you do for this project?
Given the rapidly growing popularity of canopy science and the
urgent need for new, creative methods for sustainable rainforest
utilization, the timing seems right to get plans like ours
started. We believe that with the excellent SelvaTica location
and our expertise, the research station can become a very
attractive site to conduct scientific canopy studies and to
develop innovative methods for sustainable canopy utilization.
One of the most important things at the moment is that we can
demonstrate convincingly that there is sufficient interest for
the site that we plan to develop. Therefore, we ask you for
feedback. We would welcome any suggestions or comments that you
may have concerning our ideas. You would definitely make a useful
contribution if you let us know that you would be interested in,
or even better: envision, doing research at our site. This makes
it easier for us to obtain proper funding and, in doing so, helps
canopy science (and so eventually you) by creating an interesting
new location for canopy studies.
You can e-mail us at:
<bioproca@inter.nl.net>
or reach us via snail-mail at:
Bioproca Foundation, Hertogstraat 139A, 6511 RZ Nijmegen, The
Netherlands
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Other Internet sites of interest
• Other canopy projects
•Surumoni project, Venezuela •The Panama Canopy Crane
•Wind River Canopy Crane, Washington state
• Canopy networks
•International Canopy Network Homepage •E-mail messages
Canopy Research Network (gopher) •Forest Canopy Research
Network
• Other
•Costa Rica Homepage •INBio •Biodiversity
Information Network - BIN21 •Newsgroup
bionet.biology.tropical (newsnet) •The WWW Virtual Library:
Forestry •Sustainable Forestry Directory •Tropical
Forest Conservation and Development bibliography, University of
Minnesota (gopher) •Epiphyte literature bibliography