NSFDEB-NERC: Gigante: Quantifying and upscaling the causes and drivers of death for giant tropical trees
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Department Name: School of Geography, Earth and Env Sciences
Abstract
The land carbon sink depends on the persistence of giant tropical trees. The largest 1% of trees store half the carbon in tropical forests and their deaths release this carbon back to the atmosphere, but we do not know what kills these trees because their deaths are rarely described. A novel sampling strategy is needed to effectively monitor the life and death of giant tropical trees. Gigante will integrate remote sensing and frequent field surveys to answer: (1) What kills giant trees and how do their mortality rates vary over space and time? (2) What are the risk factors underlying variation in giant tree mortality rates? and (3) How does giant tree mortality risk influence pantropical carbon stocks?
We will locate giant tree mortality events using multi-platform, high-frequency remote sensing of 7,500 ha across five tropical forest super sites. These data will facilitate targeted field surveys using detailed state-of-the art protocols to assign proximate agents of mortality to recently dead trees in an unprecedently large field study. We will integrate these data with information about climate, topography, canopy structure, and tree traits to validate mechanistic models of tree mortality risk. Finally, combining these risk models with forest plots and satellite LiDAR, we will evaluate how drivers of giant tree death predict spatial variation in forest dynamics, structure, and carbon storage. The validation of geospatial relationships will allow us estimate the contributions of giant tree mortality to pantropical forest carbon stocks.
We will locate giant tree mortality events using multi-platform, high-frequency remote sensing of 7,500 ha across five tropical forest super sites. These data will facilitate targeted field surveys using detailed state-of-the art protocols to assign proximate agents of mortality to recently dead trees in an unprecedently large field study. We will integrate these data with information about climate, topography, canopy structure, and tree traits to validate mechanistic models of tree mortality risk. Finally, combining these risk models with forest plots and satellite LiDAR, we will evaluate how drivers of giant tree death predict spatial variation in forest dynamics, structure, and carbon storage. The validation of geospatial relationships will allow us estimate the contributions of giant tree mortality to pantropical forest carbon stocks.
Organisations
- UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM (Lead Research Organisation)
- University of Eastern Finland (Collaboration)
- University of Leeds (Collaboration)
- National Institute of Amazonian Research (Collaboration)
- University of Alabama in Huntsville (Collaboration)
- Institute of Development Research (IRD) (Collaboration)
- Conservation International (Collaboration)
- National University of Malaysia (Collaboration)
- Smithsonian Institution (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER (Collaboration)
- University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (Collaboration)
- South East Asia Rainforest Research Programme (SEARRP) (Collaboration)
- UNEMAT - Nova Xavantina (Collaboration)
- University of Montana (Collaboration)
- Sabah Wildlife Department (Collaboration)
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas (Collaboration)
- University of Malaysia (Collaboration)
- University of Montreal (Collaboration)
- Cary Institute of Ecosystems Studies (Project Partner)
Publications
Araza A
(2023)
Past decade above-ground biomass change comparisons from four multi-temporal global maps
in International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation
Astigarraga J
(2024)
Relative decline in density of Northern Hemisphere tree species in warm and arid regions of their climate niches.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Bennett A
(2023)
Sensitivity of South American tropical forests to an extreme climate anomaly
in Nature Climate Change
Berenguer E
(2025)
Multifaceted Assessment of Amazonian Tree Diversity Reveals Pervasive Impacts of Human Modification.
in Global change biology
Bergamin R
(2024)
Elevational shifts in tree community composition in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest related to climate change
in Journal of Vegetation Science
Bordin K
(2025)
Growth-survival trade-off in temperate trees is weak and restricted to late-successional stages
in Journal of Ecology
Bordin K
(2023)
No relationship between biodiversity and forest carbon sink across the subtropical Brazilian Atlantic Forest
in Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation
Carvalho RL
(2023)
Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research.
in Current biology : CB
Casali S
(2025)
Fire regime and local biotic and abiotic factors as drivers of diversity patterns in highland grasslands in southern Brazil
in Plant Ecology
Cintra B
(2026)
Corrigendum to "Decline in regeneration capacity in mature forests across Great Britain" [For. Ecol. Manag. 603 (2026) 123468]
in Forest Ecology and Management
Related Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Award Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NE/Y003942/1 | 31/08/2023 | 17/09/2025 | £244,862 | ||
| NE/Y003942/2 | Transfer | NE/Y003942/1 | 18/09/2025 | 28/02/2027 | £95,842 |
| Description | A foundational infrastructure for the long-term monitoring of tropical forest mortality has been successfully established. Five supersites (Panama, Malaysia, Cameroon, Central Brazilian Amazon, Southern Brazilian Amazon), spanning the three major tropical biogeographical regions and encompassing significant gradients in soil type and climate, were set up under the preceding Gigante project and have been fully operationalised during the current reporting period. Across all supersites, 1,500 ha of forest per site are now subject to systematic monthly surveillance using drone-derived orthomosaics (1-4 cm resolution), enabling the timely detection of damaged and dead trees. This remote-sensing capacity is directly integrated with coordinated field responses, allowing teams to conduct on-the-ground postmortem examinations within one to seven weeks of damage detection. Standardised protocols have been developed and implemented for these field assessments, systematically evaluating the proximate causes of mortality and the risk factors associated with the death of large tropical trees. Over the project period, the research team successfully coordinated site establishment across multiple countries and biogeographical contexts, recruited and trained multidisciplinary field teams, developed robust and transferable monitoring protocols, and navigated complex national and institutional permitting requirements. These achievements collectively provide the empirical and logistical foundation for sustained, comparative investigation into the drivers of tropical tree mortality at a global scale. |
| Exploitation Route | The monthly orthomosaics generated across our sites will allow for further research that extend well beyond this project, from forest resilience to floristics and phenology as well as allowing for ecology to be undertaken at landscape-scales. |
| Sectors | Education Environment Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| Description | Giant tropical trees dominate the carbon cycle and other key processes within these ecosystems, yet they have historically understudied. The NERC/NSF Gigante project provides a novel way to understand tropical forests. Traditionally, forests have been monitored too infrequently and at scales too small to reveal the patterns and drivers of large-tree mortality. With Gigante, we have created a new framework for studying tropical forests: through the lens of giant trees and at landscape scales. Building on this foundation, it will be possible to understand ecosystem processes at the scales at which they occur, with potential implications for quantifying and auditing carbon and biodiversity credits. |
| Sector | Other |
| Description | 2025 EcoCamp education program, 5-8th grade, Dr. Gora presented about giant trees |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | 2025 Gora, E.M. The role of storms as agents of tropical forest change and the need to understand giant trees. Yale YNCC Workshop on Forest resilience in climate risk assessments of tropical forests |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | 2025 Gora, E.M. When, where, and why do giant trees die? Cornell University EEB Seminar |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | 2025. Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) annual meeting; Oaxaca, Mexico. Continuity of long-term monitoring efforts for a changing Amazonia. (invited talk) |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | 2025. Forest Ecology for a Changing Planet. Centre for Global Wood Security, University of Cambridge, UK |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | 2025. Forest Ecology for a Changing Planet. University of Leeds, UK |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | 2025. Increasing tree size across Amazonia. NGEE tropics programme, Oak Ridge National Lab, US (online talk). |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Evan Gora presented at the Lightning and giant tree death in a changing world. Université de Montréal Plant Biology Seminar Series |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Forest Ecology for a Changing Planet. Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, US |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Participation in an activity, workshop - Gisele Biem Mori gave a talk at the University of Birmingham (December 2025) titled From plant strategies to forest function. Birmingham, UK. |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Participation in an activity, workshop - Vanessa Rubio gave a talk at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (October 2025) titled The role of stochastic and deterministic processes in shaping forest dynamics. Millbrook, NY, USA. |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Participation in an activity, workshop - Yan Moraes gave a talk at INPA (August 2025) titled Vulnerabilidade das florestas tropicais à seca: integrando hidrologia e hidráulica das árvores. Manaus, Brasil. |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | PhD student Gustavo Lemes Pinto attended the British Ecological Society meeting (December 15-18 of 2025 in Edinburgh, UK) to present the poster titled "Structural damages in Amazonian giant trees. |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Effect of fragmentation on the mortality of giant trees in the driest, hottest, and most degraded region of the Amazon forest |
| Amount | £18,260 (GBP) |
| Organisation | National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Brazil |
| Start | 09/2025 |
| End | 06/2026 |
| Description | Integrating soil hydrology and hydraulic traits to understand the mortality risk of giant trees to droughts |
| Amount | R$Â 440,000 (BRL) |
| Organisation | National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Brazil |
| Start | 05/2025 |
| End | 06/2027 |
| Description | Start-up funds to Adriane Esquivel Muelbert |
| Amount | £150,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2025 |
| Description | Understanding the future of tropical forests through large tropical trees |
| Amount | £54,179 (GBP) |
| Organisation | British Council |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2025 |
| End | 12/2026 |
| Title | Developed of protocol on how to train the field team. |
| Description | Vanessa Rubio with support from Adriane Esquivel Muelbert and Evan Gora, developed of protocol for training the field team. This protocol uses our experience training field assistants and aims to facilitate further training in other sites and by other ECR performing a leading role for the first time. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Better communication and standardisation of methods within the team. Empowerment of postdocs. |
| Title | Developed protocol for drone flights using Trinity Pro. |
| Description | Developed protocol for drone flights using Trinity Pro. Protocol has been used across sites and for capacity building. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Better communication and standardisation of methods within the team. |
| Title | Development and implementation of drone flight protocol at the Panama site (BCI) |
| Description | Development and implementation of drone flight protocol at the Panama site (BCI). The protocol is now being used in all the other sites and for capacity building purposes too. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Better communication and standardisation of methods within the team. |
| Title | Field tree forensics protocol |
| Description | Vanessa Rubio developed novel field tree forensics field protocol to identify proximate causes of giant tree mortality and evaluate forests gaps after disturbance. This protocol has been developed in the Panama site and has already been tested and implemented at this field site. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Better communication and standardisation of methods within the team. Protocol to be published soon as part of a methods paper to help other research teams identifying causes of tree death. |
| Title | Gap detection from drone images |
| Description | We developed a method that uses changes in canopy structure and colour to detect gaps across 1,500 ha of forest in five sites in the tropics. Using the photos from the aerial surveys, we map forest canopy structure and produce landscape-scale orthophotos to enable analyses of structural and spectral change over time. We are working to publish the methods within the next year. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | After appropriate validation this advancement will allow for quantification of tree mortality at scale in the tropics. |
| Title | Heart rot field protocol |
| Description | Vanessa Rubio, Gustavo Lemes and Gisele Mori developmented a heart rot field protocol to identify heart rot in dead giant trees to inform the data from the tree forensics protocol. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Better communication and standardisation of methods within the team. Protocol to be shared with other research team using the resistograph. |
| Title | Installation of 3 soil moisture sensors at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in October 2025. |
| Description | Installation of 3 soil moisture sensors at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in October 2025. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Installation of 3 soil moisture sensors at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in October 2025. |
| Title | Installation of a METER weather station at Danum Valley, Malaysia in September 2025. |
| Description | Installation of a METER weather station at Danum Valley, Malaysia in September 2025. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | installation of a METER weather station at Danum Valley, Malaysia in September 2025. |
| Title | Installation of a METER weather station at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in May 2025. |
| Description | Installation of a METER weather station at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in May 2025. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Installation of a METER weather station at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in May 2025. |
| Title | Installation of a lightning triangulation system at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in December 2025. |
| Description | Installation of a lightning triangulation system at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in December 2025. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Installation of a lightning triangulation system at Fazenda Vera Cruz, Brazil in December 2025. |
| Title | Pipeline for analysing drone imagery to produce orthomosaics |
| Description | Ian McGregor designed a pipeline for analysing drone imagery to produce orthomosaics (colour images of large forest areas at high resolution) and three-dimensional forest canopy, align this imagery over time, and locate tree damage and death events. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | We can now produce orthomosaics (colour images of large forest areas at high resolution) and three-dimensional forest canopy, align this imagery over time, and locate tree damage and death events. |
| Title | Dataset on tree damage and mortality |
| Description | Unpublished datasets on tree damage and mortality. This includes first drone-based detections and then the ground-level data on tree mortality, biomass carbon mortality, mode of death, and various risk factors Already being collected for a year in Panama and collection is ongoing at 3 other sites with the 5th to begin this month. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | not yet detectable |
| Title | Giant tree distribution in Nova Xavantina and Manaus |
| Description | Evan Gora, Adriane Esquivel Muelbert and Gustavo Lemes generated a database of Giant tree distribution in Nova Xavantina and Manaus with information of species identification, crown condition and liana infestation. This database will allow us to understand the variation of giant tree distribution across water availability and proximity to the forest edge. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Gustavo Lemes (PhD student) is using this database for his first PhD chapter. |
| Title | Novel database on forest demography |
| Description | Largest database on forest demography for any single forest site, with 9.2 million records of tree survival or death across 128 ha with up to 40 years of monitoring. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This will allow for investigation on the key and undervalued importance of long-lived giant trees to tropical forest function. We have a working paper on this at the moment led by the Cary-based postdoc Vanessa Rubio. |
| Title | Tree hollowness for two Amazonian sites |
| Description | We sampled tree hollowness across 200 stems in two Amazonian sites using a resistograph. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This data can help us understand biomass dynamics within giant trees. It will be published within the next year. |
| Title | Unpublished dataset on giant tree hydraulic traits in Manaus, including multiple in-field collected morphological and physiological traits of trees distributed along a local hydro-topographical gradient. |
| Description | Unpublished dataset on giant tree hydraulic traits in Manaus, including multiple in-field collected morphological and physiological traits of trees distributed along a local hydro-topographical gradient. This dataset will improve our understanding of how the drought-induced mortality risks of giant tropical trees are modulated by the combination of their hydraulic strategies with local environmental conditions. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Unpublished dataset on giant tree hydraulic traits in Manaus, including multiple in-field collected morphological and physiological traits of trees distributed along a local hydro-topographical gradient. This dataset will improve our understanding of how the drought-induced mortality risks of giant tropical trees are modulated by the combination of their hydraulic strategies with local environmental conditions. |
| Description | Adi Shabrani | Manager, Wildlife Atlas of Sabah | WWF-Malaysia |
| Organisation | Sabah Wildlife Department |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Monitoring forests at such a large scale presents challenges, mainly due to the labor-intensive nature of traditional field methods, which can limit data availability. In this collaboration we use the advancements in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), developed as part of Gigante to allow for robust data collection at landscape-level while being cost effective. UAVs, in particular, offer high-resolution, cloud-free data, addressing the limitations of satellite imagery. These technologies are essential for monitoring tree dynamics, climate-related changes, and wildlife interactions, such as monitoring orangutan nests, providing a more efficient, large scale approach to ecological research and conservation management. Hence, WWF-Malaysia collaborates with the Gigante project aiming to deepen the understanding of tropical habitat resilience, especially on natural maintenance processes. The project focuses on collaborative, landscape-scale data collection and interpretation to support Sabah's forestry and wildlife management practices using UAV. |
| Collaborator Contribution | A key component of this initiative is studying habitat dynamics in the Danum Valley Conservation Area (DVCA), an intact primary forest that is home to significant wildlife populations. Adi Shabrani and WWF Malaysia will be using the research infrastructure of Gigante to monitor fruit production and wildlife at the landscape level. This information will then be used for the purpose of conservation-management of DVCA. |
| Impact | No outputs yet. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Dr Flavia Costa, INPA |
| Organisation | National Institute of Amazonian Research |
| Country | Brazil |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Continued collaboration with Flavia Costa, including co-authoring a funding proposal to Brazilian government that was funded to support hydraulic trait measurements |
| Collaborator Contribution | Wrote proposal to understand the hydraulic of giant trees. Recruited a PhD student to work support ground work in Brazil. |
| Impact | To early to report |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Drew Peltier |
| Organisation | University of Nevada, Las Vegas |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The Gigante team will provide location of dead trees and timing of death. We will further facilitate collaboration within Brazil. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Drew will be measuring the carbon isotopes in new branches from heavily damaged giant trees in an effort to quantify the age of non-structural carbohydrates in large old trees. |
| Impact | No output yet. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Elia Goodong |
| Organisation | University of Malaysia |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We provided building capacity by training the field team in collecting tree mortality variables and by training the team in flying the drones to collect landscape-scale data. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Elia Goodong from the University of Malaysia Sabah helped with the implementation of the Malaysian field campaign, by providing authorisation to undertake work in Danum Valley. Provided logistics and instructions on how to navigate Malaysian fieldwork. |
| Impact | Gained access to Danum Valley Support of a local collaborator in Sabah Legal documents support to gain research passes. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Elsa Ordway UCLA |
| Organisation | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Develop collaboration with Elsa Ordway (UCLA) to implement a new Gigante field site in Cameroon. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Elsa is collaborating with our team to help implementing the field site in Cameroon. |
| Impact | First field campaign undergoing in Cameroon. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Etienne Laliberte |
| Organisation | University of Montreal |
| Country | Canada |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are working with Etienne's group by providing drone imagery and providing species labels to inform the AI species identification. We are providing the images generated by Gigante to allow Etienne's team to test and calibrate their crown segmentation algorithm so that can be expanded in other forest. We are also arranging the logistics so that Etienne's team can work identifying the species of different crowns within our data. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Etienne is leading the remote sensing component of an XPrize-funded project that is developing methods for identifying individual tree crowns and the species of these trees using high-resolution drone imagery. |
| Impact | No outputs yet. |
| Start Year | 2025 |
| Description | Helene Muller-Landau and Stuart Davies (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) |
| Organisation | Smithsonian Institution |
| Department | Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute |
| Country | Panama |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration to coordinate of LiDAR flights across our study area in Panama in mid-2023, this will help to create baseline for structural changes across the forest. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Helene Muller-Landau (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute), Stuart Davies (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) will be providing data from the prior LiDAR flights. |
| Impact | To early to report |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Jedediah Brodie (University of Montana) |
| Organisation | University of Montana |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provide access to drone images for phenology monitoring. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Advances on the permit stage in Malaysia and potentially sharing drone permit in country. |
| Impact | Coordination of drone permits in Malaysia |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Nicolas Barbier and Pierre Ploton (IRD, France) |
| Organisation | Institute of Development Research (IRD) |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Develop collaboration to implement field site in the Dja Reserve in Camaroon. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Internal information about Dja Reserve in Camaroon and access to in-country collaborations. |
| Impact | Advances developing collaborations in the Dja Reserve in Camaroon, moved field site to Carmaroon as part of this collaboration. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Phillip Bitzer and Jeffrey Burchfield (both of The University of Alabama in Huntsville) |
| Organisation | University of Alabama in Huntsville |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration to locate lightning strikes and their intensity across our study site in Panama |
| Collaborator Contribution | Develop of parallel proposal and working together with on novel techniques to detecting lightning strikes. |
| Impact | To early to report |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Polyanna Bispo |
| Organisation | University of Manchester |
| Department | School of Environment, Education and Development |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We will be proving Gigante imagery and mortality attribution for Pollyana's project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Pollyana plans to use Gigante data to calibrate Remote Sensing products focusing on wind events. Pollyana is the PI of an ERC consolidator grant that has just been submitted with Gigante as a partner. |
| Impact | No outputs yet |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Prof Beatriz Marimon (UNEMAT) |
| Organisation | UNEMAT - Nova Xavantina |
| Country | Brazil |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developed collaboration with Prof Beatriz Marimon to hire staff, coordinate foreign field research, and lay the groundwork for our first field campaign in the Southern Amazon. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Help formalising agreements with UNEMAT, provided insight knowledge at the Nova Xavantina site. |
| Impact | Hire staff in Nova Xavantina fieldsite and recruited a new PhD student (Gustavo Lemes) based at UNEMAT. Set up the Nova Xavantina site. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Prof David Galbraith and Emmanuel Gloor (University of Leeds) |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration in the site in Southern Amazonia to facilitate data collection and scientific outputs related to questions in the region. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Helpoing to hire staff, coordinate foreign field research, and lay the groundwork for our first field campaign in the southern Amazon |
| Impact | Have recruited a PhD student, Gustavo Lemes to work on location-related questions. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Quantifying biodiversity at scale |
| Organisation | Conservation International |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We are starting conversations with Conservation International (CI) to develop ways to measure biodiversity at scale. NERC/NSF Gigante will contribute with methods of gap and crown detection developed currently for our research. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Conservation International will contribute with expertise on conservation and local partners. |
| Impact | Current outcomes are research proposals written together. |
| Start Year | 2025 |
| Description | SEARRP (Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Partnership) to coordinate the logistics for field data |
| Organisation | South East Asia Rainforest Research Programme (SEARRP) |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Sector | Multiple |
| PI Contribution | Partnered with SEARRP (Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Partnership) to coordinate the logistics for field data collection and drone flights at the Danum Valley Conservation Area. We provided building capacity by training the field team in collecting tree mortality variables and by training the team in flying the drones to collect landscape-scale data. |
| Collaborator Contribution | SEARRP coordinated the logistics for field data collection and drone flights at the Danum Valley Conservation Area |
| Impact | SEARRP (Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Partnership) to help with getting permission for the Sabah forestry department. SEARRP aided logistic for Filed work SEARRP provided research assistants. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Samuli Junttila |
| Organisation | University of Eastern Finland |
| Country | Finland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Gigante is providing imagery and mortality attribution to Samuli's project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Samuli is tasking high-resolution satellite imagery (0.5x0.5m pixels) of our field sites each month from Planet SkySat. We plan to use these data to test whether mortality events are detectable and quantifiable using this type of satellite imagery. Samuli plans to integrate these data into his effort to track drought-caused mortality globally |
| Impact | no outputs yet |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Shafrina Wan (University of Malaysia) |
| Organisation | National University of Malaysia |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Implementation of the Malaysia field campaign to maximise the outputs from data collection and facilitate logistics on the ground. Early collaboration with Adriane Esquivel Muelbert and Evan Gora. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Internal information about general research in Danum Valley and Malaysia and access to in-country collaborations. |
| Impact | Advances on the permit stage in Malaysia. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Article by journalist Ellyn Lapointe |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Ellyn already put an article together based on work in Panama for the Smithsonian Magazine |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/why-are-giant-ancient-tropical-trees-dying-18... |
| Description | Cosmo Club in New York City, USA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Evan Gora was the speaker at an event in the Cosmo Club in New York City that supports conservation and research efforts |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | EcoCamp |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Evan Gora attended the Cary Institute EcoCamp (15 elementary students in 6-8th grade) to teach them about our research and the use of drones in ecology |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Ecological Society of America (ESA) meeting, USA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Evan Gora attended ESA and presented: The case for storms as a major agent of climate-driven |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Interview for Casa e Jardim. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Gisele More gave an interview where she explained the Gigante Project, discussing why we study giant trees, the methods we use, and the challenges we face. The goal was to communicate the importance of this research to a broader audience and raise awareness about giant trees' ecological roles and conservation needs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://revistacasaejardim.globo.com/um-so-planeta/noticia/2024/09/arvores-tropicais-gigantes-estao-... |
| Description | Interview for Ecoa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Gisele provided a reporter with information on how giant trees contribute to carbon sequestration for a report she was writing, ensuring accurate scientific insights. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.uol.com.br/ecoa/ultimas-noticias/2024/11/22/ventos-extremos-derrubam-arvores-gigantes-e-... |
| Description | Interview on Kingston Radio in New York. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Evan Gora gave an interview on the Nature Nuggets show broadcast on Kingston Radio in New York. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | James Cook University students |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Vanessa Rubio gave a presentation to a group of undergraduate students from the James Cook University, Australia to show them the project going on in Danum Valley, Malaysia on Dec 2, 2024. Following this talk they spent the day in the forest discussing the project and learning how to identify forest disturbances and collect data. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Mongabay story on Giant trees |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Mongabay page featuring the Gigante project and the team. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/are-the-amazons-biggest-trees-dying-forest-coroners-investigate/ |
| Description | New Phytologist Next Generation Scientists meeting, Duke, NC, USA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Postdoc Vanessa Rubio attended the New Phytologist Next Generation Scientists meeting (June 5-8 of 2024 in Duke, NC, USA) to present the results of the paper The key and undervalued importance of long-lived giant trees to tropical forest function. She won the best poster presentation award. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Talk at INPA, Brazil |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Vanessa Rubio gave a talk at INPA (May 2024) titled Dinámica de Bosques a través de grupos funcionales y árboles gigantes. Manaus, Brasil. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Talk at UNEMAT, Brazil |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert and Gisele Biem Mori gave a talk at UNEMAT (September 2024) titled Entendo as árvores gigantes nos trópicos. Nova Xavantina, Brazil. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | The radio story on the Pulse which is a science radio show broadcast on US National Public Radio |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Dan Grossman published a radio story, including interviews with Adriane and Evan, on The Pulse which is a science radio show broadcast on US National Public Radio |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Videos for School children |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Adriane Esquivel Muelbert made a series of videos and 360o images during several field campaigns. These now integrate educational material for school children in the UK, Dubai, US and Brazil. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://canvas.bham.ac.uk/courses/52405/pages/welcome |