Expedition
Amazonia
The Amazonian Forest is an immense "Green sea", characterized by un inestimable wealth of forms of life: from hundred-year old trees which can reach 60 meters of height, to tiny species of animals which lives underground, often unknowned or unclassified too, but formerly in danger of extinction.
In fact since sixty years has been started a heavy exploitation of the forest to harvest valuable wood, to create new spaces for the agricalture, to comply with the needs of a human population in constant increase.
Really, in the last 10 years has been slowly asserted a sensitivity to environmental problems, which are of unquestioned global interest, ever since the Amazonian Forest is the great oxigen source of the world.
So, in these recent years international projects have been born, to increase the knowledges about this complex "organism" which is the Amazonian Forest, throught the collecting of biological, biochemical, hidrological and climatic data.
Since 1998 the Italian Research has been coming in these projects, thanks to the collaboration between the Forest Ecolgy Laboratory of University of Tuscia in Italy, and the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) in Brazil, especially around the theme of Carbon Cycle of the Amazonian Forest.
The area where the Italian researcher have been worked toghether with Brazilian, Dutch and German researchers too, is situated close to Manaus city, in the Amazonian state, north of Brazil.
Here there is into the forest, an Experimental Station of Tropical Selviculture, where are installed two towers for the collecting of CO2 fluxes and where have been occurred other important remarks.
These studies will be continue for the next years with the aim to understand the delicate balance which controls the Amazonian Ecosistem and suggests to the Brazilian govern an environmental management respecteful both of the human needs and the forestal resources.
Nepal
High elevation ecosystems are among the most fragile of the earth; harshness in high altitude environments allows the survival of a few specifically adapted forms of life. While many scientific expeditions in Himalaya deal with the study of human physiology at high altitude conditions, rather limited is the scientific knowledge of Himalayan ecosystems and particularly of transition zones at the altitude limit of vegetation.
In this contest, a group of 18 researchers and students has carried out in 1994 the scientific expedition "Jumla 94" in one of the most remote regions of western Nepal. Some important results have been achieved during this expedition. Of particular interest was finding an evergreen oak (Quercus semecarpifolia) able to live at an altitude of 4000 m a.s.l., having developed special biological adaptations whose understanding could improve our knowledge about the origin of some Mediterranean species, as the Holm oak (Quercus ilex).
The following expedition, named "RARA-SAIPAL 99", had two main goals: to continue the investigations carried out during JUMLA FOREST 94, through the collection of more detailed data and plant samples, and to investigate the local relationship between men and forest. The scientific staff was composed by 20 of students and researchers. The investigated fields where plant pathology, entomology, biomass production, social forestry.
Siberia
Four scientifical expeditions have been held in Siberia during years '96,'98,'99,'00, financed by European Union's funds for research.
Investigated areas are placed about 600 Km north of the town of Krasnoyarsk, in the surroundigs of the village of Zotino (61°N;89°E), which rises on the west bank of river Jenisey at 160 m (a.s.l.)
The river, one of the longest in Asia, flows from the mongolian highlands up to the Arctic Ocean and separates a vast plain territory covered with bogs stretching westwads from a hilly land which spreads at altitudes between 200 and 500 m in east direction.
The first two expeditions set on the west side of Jenisey and focused the investigation upon sparse Scots pine stands which carachterize the landscape mingled with bogs.
The object of research was the study of the stands structure at different age, the way of regeneration after natural fires, forest's functionality in terms of CO2, water vapour exchange with the atmosphere and solar energy use efficiency and partioning into different parts of the ecosystems.
The last two expeditions studied the taiga on the east bank of the river, which is a conifer forest made up of cedars, siberian firs,spruce spotted with broadleaved stands mostly represented by birches and poplars.
In order to study the gaseous exchange of CO2 and water vapour scaffold towers for instument installation have been built in different forest typologies. Further investigation regarded the reconstruction of secondary succession after fire disturbance, collecting datas of stands' composition and structure along representative transects.
