The Amazon rainforest stores large amounts of carbon mainly in both plant biomass and in the soil, and therefore contributes strongly to the Global Carbon Cycle. Global Climate Change and deforestation can profoundly modify CO2 emissions, leading to a process of ‘savannization’/desertification that can have a deep impact in the functioning of ecosystems and therefore on the goods and services that the forest provides (as a consequence of higher temperature rates, significant modifications of rainfall regimes, fires, increases in tree mortality and the threat of extinction to the species most sensitive to these changes). To understand patterns and processes and then unravel mechanisms and make reliable predictions, studies must be carried out in situ and along natural space-time scales. More than never, a better understanding of biological functions and mechanisms at different spatial and temporal scales is required. For this objective, we will work in interdisciplinary collaboration and taking advantage of the strengths of the LMI-BioINCA research consortium led by taxonomists, ecologists, molecular biologists, physiologists, specialists in demographic models and spatial analysis.

An indispensable and available tool for the past and future studies is the large-scale ‘Yasuní Forest Dynamic Plot’ (YFDP; 50 hectares) established in 1995. All the previously collected information along these years, and all that is planned to do in the following years are a solid foundation for understanding the mechanisms and biological processes that explain diversity, functioning and forest dynamics.