High carbon stocks in Africa's understudied tropical ecosystems

Tropical mountain forests are unique forest systems. Lower temperatures, cloudiness, wind and waterlogged soils affect tree composition and forest structure, and therefore, aboveground biomass carbon (AGC) stocks. But little was known about these forests in Africa. 

A team of researchers assembled and analysed a new dataset (AfriMont) spanning 44 montane sites in 12 African countries. They found a mean AGC stock of 150 Mg C per hectare: higher than in the Amazon (per unit area). They also found that 0.8 million hectares of such forests have been lost since 2000. 

In this seminar, Aida Cuni-Sanchez will discuss the implications of the findings, and also present the team's recent paper on mapping peat thickness and carbon stocks of the world's largest tropical peatland, which is found in the central Congo basin.

Dr. Aida Cuni-Sanchez is an Assistant Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and an honorary fellow at the University of York. She has a PhD in environmental sciences from the University of Southampton and a Licenciatura in biology from the University of Barcelona. 

She has over 10 years of work experience in 12 countries in tropical Africa. She has received several prestigious prizes. As well as developing the AfriMont plot network, she is a key partners in research colloborations in Africa including AfriTRON.