Plots in the Tambopata National Reserve (RNT) – Explorer’s Inn
In 1979, the first permanent plot with the code TAM-02 was installed and in 2010 the last plot with the code TAM-09 was installed. The plots are re-measured approximately every 5 years, with the oldest plots having 13 measurements and the most recent plots having 05 measurements. These plots are square in shape, 100 m per side (1 ha surface), these plots have been installed following a physiognomic-structural criterion of the vegetation, which is why each plot occupies well-differentiated habitats, with the most extreme being the one occupied. for plot 3-4, called “swamp”. In each plot, all woody plants that have 10 or more centimeters in diameter at breast height (1.30 m) were marked with aluminum plates, held by nails of the same metal, thus including freely erect trees, hemiepiphytic trees (matapalos), thick lianas, palm trees and tree ferns. In addition to each marked woody plant, two botanical samples are taken to identify them and name them by their scientific names. The botanical samples are deposited in a national herbarium and another sample is sent to a herbarium abroad in order to confirm the identification and to ensure the indefinite permanence of the samples that are the witnesses of the investigation.
In this way, each time we arrive to evaluate the plots, an average of 4,640 trees are measured, the plants that died in the period are counted and the plants that reached the minimum diameter (10 cm) are included in the inventory, these new individuals. They are called “recruits”, depending on the purposes of each study, data are taken from the heights of the trees or soil samples. The RNT plots contain an average of 580 marked individuals, making up 42 botanical families, 103 genera and 168 species; which are average data found in other forests in the Peruvian Amazon.
Initially, the plots had a purpose largely focused on studying the composition and structure of the vegetation and comparing it with studies in other places; However, the objectives have changed over time trying to find other applications to the data, such as: -Revealing how climate and atmospheric changes affect the dynamics and carbon of the Amazon forests – and how the forests are (or are not) are) resistant to these changes. – Help calibrate, validate and compare dynamic vegetation models, sensors and remote sensing missions and other community efforts to understand the future, present and past of the Earth’s forests.
Usually the information produced in the plots is not analyzed independently; For this reason there are no specific analyzes of the RNT plots; but this information has been analyzed in conjunction with data from other plots; In this sense, it can be stated that the intact primary forests of the Peruvian Amazon behave as carbon sinks: a key ecosystem service worldwide. This sink was quantified at 0.52 Mg C ha-1 year-1 (1990-2017) for the intact Amazonian forests of the Protected Natural Areas (ANP) of Peru and the buffer zones. In other words, the conservation of intact forests in ANP helped remove 9.7 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere per year, which is equivalent to approximately 86% of the country’s emissions from burning fossil fuels during 2012. This service of atmospheric CO2 removal, it is necessary to include it in the national greenhouse gas inventory, and in national emissions reduction commitments, for two reasons. First, because it is an important flow, it would help us have a more realistic approximation of the carbon balance in Peru. Second, it would strengthen the need to maintain the integrity of these forests for the storage services (avoid emissions) and carbon sink (removal of emissions) and for the biological diversity they house.