- Home
- Project
- Activities
- Communication
- Gallery
- Network
- Links
- Intranet
under climate and human pressure
Project
Question
Is it possible to make predictions on the optimal evolution of a forest system under human pressure to preserve biodiversity and human well-being ? To answer such a question, one has to consider, on the one hand forest growth and its regeneration under climate change and, on the other hand, the change of use of the forest by man.
Method
The BIOSERF project is divided into four interdisciplinary activities, namely forest regeneration, socio-economic and ethnobotany, modeling of plant growth (dynamic vegetation model or DVM) and modeling of land-use (agent-based model or ABM).
- Seed dispersal of trees giving ES becomes limited in fragmented habitats or in the absence of frugivorous vertebrates due to excessive hunting, and particularly of primates. Seed dispersal and regeneration capacity of five tree species sources of ES are investigated as model species.
- Demography, agriculture, trade, people expectation and means of transport impact the way man will use forest resources. These resources are characterized in terms of ES.
- DVM adapted to the area under investigation thanks to local information on plants and animals will permit to compute the potential vegetation and potential ES production for the present.
- The ABM will be adapted to local socio-economic conditions to compute present land use.
- The mathematical coupling of the DVM and the ABM will permit to assess the sustainability of the forests and ES under various climatic and socio-economic scenarios for the future.
Localisation
The project will focus on the lowest latitude zone of the Congo Basin, on the WWF Lake Tele – Lake Tumba Landscape, the largest area of swamp and flooded forest in Africa, and more specifically on the DRC part of the Landscape, spreading over ca. 78,972 km˛ in the Equateur and Bandundu Provinces. The huge biological value of the Lake Tumba Landscape is widely recognized. It contains many distinct habitats ranging from terra firme and swamp forests to grasslands, savannahs and prairies along the Congo River and its many tributaries. Among the large mammals, the presence of many primate species has been reported (among which the bonobo), but also of the forest elephant, the African forest buffalo, the bushpig and the leopard. Huge and increasing human pressure is threatening the sustainability of the ecosystems through ill-adapted practices, including slash-andburn or shifting cultivation, forest product harvesting and commercial hunting and fishing (primate, crocodile, bushpig, elephant for ivory).