- Title: Integrative Studies of Socio-Ecological Resilience, Conservation and Development
- Principal Investigators: Christopher Baraloto
- Timeline: Ongoing
In collaboration with the University of Florida and a consortium of local partners, we have worked since 2005 to address impacts of the highway paving in the southwestern Amazon in Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. We are currently completing a large interdisciplinary project that examines social and ecological resilience in forest communities of the southwestern Amazon where the transnational highway has recently been paved. The project integrates remote sensing analyses with community and household inventories and descriptions of forest structure and plant diversity.
We work with botanical teams at three participating universities in Puerto Maldonado, Peru (UNAMAD); Cobija, Bolivia (CIPA-UAP); and Rio Branco, Brazil (UFAC) to build student teams that have now established more than 75 new permanent plots in the region. We are integrating this information with the remote sensing and interview data to test for effects of connectivity to population centers on forest structure and biomass, commercial resources, and species composition.
Team
Principal Investigator
Christopher Baraloto
Professor; Associate Director, Institute of Environment
305-348-4027, 305-442-7169x101
cbaralot@fiu.edu
OE 243, VH 137
Participating Faculty
Cara A Rockwell
Assistant Professor
305-348-1930
crockwel@fiu.edu
AHC5 361
Participating Students
Coming soon!