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A Q&A with Marcos Longo3 min read

by Julie Bobyock on February 13, 2023

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Q and A

As he conducted field work in the Amazon, Research Scientist Marcos Longo experienced the deforestation of Amazon forests and witnessed the thick clouds of smoke from these ecosystems as they were on fire. Since then, Longo has dedicated his career towards researching the impacts of climate change and disturbance on tropical ecosystems. 

Longo at the Guyaflux covariance tower at the Paracou research station (French Guiana), overlooking the Amazon forest. Photo taken in March 2016 when Marcos participated as instructor in a short course on modeling tropical forests. Photo credit: Camille Piponiot

What led you to research tropical ecosystems’ response to disturbances? 

I am Brazilian–so deforestation in the Amazon has been on my radar for a long time. The Atlantic Forest ecosystem surrounding São Paulo, where I grew up, was once heavily forested but it is now mostly gone. It’s a system that has been rapidly and dramatically changing throughout my lifetime, and seeing these big forests experience significant changes attracted my attention, even at an early age.

When I was an undergraduate student doing field work in the Amazon, I witnessed the impacts of land use change the forests. My third field experience was during the dry season, and I saw the thick clouds of smoke from the fires. Seeing this firsthand had a big impact on me, making me interested in how these changes would affect the tropical ecosystems in the long-term.

How have your previous research experiences informed your work? 

My undergraduate and Master’s studies at University of São Paulo strengthened my atmospheric science background. During my Ph.D. at Harvard, I began studying the impacts of climate change on the future of Amazon forests and gained experience with ecosystem models. 

At my first postdoc at Embrapa, a Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, I examined the effects of forest degradation on carbon stocks. I was also exposed to questions that I hadn’t considered before. There were so many things I didn’t know, and I realized there is just so much to learn about how these forests work and how they’re changing. This was a significant experience for my career direction – I became interested in seeing the impacts of changes besides deforestation, like droughts and wildfires. 

Longo taking tree trunk diameter measurements near La Selva, Costa Rica during the Second Regional Workshop for Central America on Biomass Estimation and Forest-Cover Mapping in the Tropics (Jan 2017), organized by SilvaCarbon and the Global Forest Observation Initiative. Photo credit: Luciane Sato.

How does airborne lidar data help you understand forest disturbance? Is this method new to you?

Field data can be very limited because it takes a lot of effort, and if you’re interested in forest degradation there is limited access as many areas are in private lands. But with airborne lidar data, we can survey much more area. This even allows us to characterize the vertical structure of the forest and model more heterogeneity in FATES (Functionality-Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator). So, we are using lidar data to expand the forest area the models can integrate and display. 

I have strong experience with modeling, but am new to using FATES–the model is unique and uses different code than what I’ve worked with in the past. As I continue to learn, collaboration on such a large team is helpful and allows the model to advance much faster.

How has your experience in NGEE-Tropics inspired your future research directions?

I’m excited about the next phase of NGEE-Tropics. The project hopes to integrate more atmospheric research, and I look forward to exploring how changes in tropical forests are going to impact atmospheric feedbacks. Since I initially began my career with atmospheric science, I am excited to come full circle. 

News & Events

Study Sheds Light on Microbial Communities in Earth’s Subsurface2 min read

August 16, 2023

  From the tops of tree canopies to the bottom of groundwater reservoirs, a vast amount of living organisms interact with nonliving components such as rock, water, and soil to shape this area of Earth known as the “critical zone.” Over half of Earth’s microbes are located in the subsurface critical zone, which ranges from…

Carl Steefel Honored in Goldschmidt Session on Reactive Transport2 min read

August 2, 2023

The contributions of Carl Steefel to the reactive transport modeling scientific community were recognized in a session held in his honor at the recent Goldschmidt 2023 conference (Lyon, France). Goldschmidt is the foremost annual, international conference on geochemistry and related subjects, organized by the European Association of Geochemistry and the Geochemical Society. The session was…

DOE Funds Projects to Advance Forest Carbon Dioxide Removal Efforts and Agricultural Soil Carbon Conservation4 min read

August 1, 2023

The DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) and Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) recently announced $5 million in funding for four projects–two from Berkeley Lab with EESA leadership. The projects selected offer “promising solutions” to the nation’s climate change challenges by helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will “accelerate their deployment…

Quantifying the strength of the land carbon sink3 min read

July 26, 2023

This article first appeared at nature.berkeley.edu/news. The world’s forests, grasslands, and other terrestrial ecosystems have played a substantial role in offsetting human carbon emissions—a capability that UC Berkeley researchers say would be threatened by continued global change. The assessment, published today as a new review paper in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, presents a comprehensive analysis of…

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