About AFRICADIV

To help document the role and response of tropical forests in a global change context, the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development has been collaborating since 2010 with local institutions in Cameroon, Gabon and DRC to set up a network (or observatory) of permanent forest inventory plots.

Data acquisition follows international methodological standards (Dallmeier 1992) to measure above-ground biomass and inventory tree species within 1 ha square plots.

Taxa identification is conducted through the following steps: experiment field botanists conduct a first identification on the field. When possible, herbarium samples are collected for (i) each species of a plot present and (ii) all unidentified, or uncertain identification, individuals. Herbarium samples are collected in at least two duplicates. One stay in the host country while another is stored at a unique dedicated herbarium collection for tree inventory in Central Africa at the Herbarium of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) (BRLU). This collection is curated by BRLU in collaboration with the Missouri Botanical Garden (Central African program).

A particular attention is given to the quality of plot georeferencing (Réjou-Méchain et al. 2019) with the prospect of remote sensing product calibration/validation. Sampling of plot location is oriented towards representative forest types, and not fully random. It is therefore more suitable in a model-based statistical framework than in a design-based one (McRoberts et al. 2015).

In terms of scientific output, parts of the plot network has already been used in ecological and remote sensing studies (see Publications section for more information).

Site web : Central African plot network

Contacts : Gilles Dauby

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Partners

  • Herbarium of Université Libre de Bruxelles BRLU
  • Laboratoire de Botanique systématique et d’Ecologie (Ecole Normale Supérieure), Yaoundé, Cameroon)
  • Université de Yaoundé, Cameroon
  • Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG), Saint Louis, U.S.A. Missouri
  • LMI Dynamique des écosystèmes continentaux d’Afrique Centrale en contexte de changements globaux (DYCOFAC)

People

The following scientists and technicians contributed to field work at one time or another:
Téophille Ayol, Nicolas Barbier, Ehoarn Bidault, Faustin Boyemba, Sarah Cohen, Pierre Couteron, Gilles Dauby, Vincent Deblauwe, Vincent Droissart, Isabelle Fabre, Davy Ikabanga, Yves Issembé, Narcisse Kandem, John Katembo, Moses Libalah, Gislain Mofack, Olivier Ngana, Raul Niangadouma, Raphaël Pélissier, Pierre Ploton, Le Bienfaiteur Sagang, Murielle Simo, Bonaventure Sonké, Tariq Stévart, Herman Taedoumg, Stéphane Momo Takoudjou, Nicolas Texier, Mbutanganga Tshimba, Donatien Zebaze, Lise Zemagho.

Publications

  1. John M. Katembo, Moses B. Libalah, Faustin B. Boyemba, Gilles Dauby, Nicolas Barbier (2020). Multiple Stable Dominance States in the Congo Basin Forests . Forests, (11), pp. 553, https://doi.org/10.3390/f11050553
  2. Le Bienfaiteur T. Sagang, Pierre Ploton, Bonaventure Sonké, Hervé Poilvé, Pierre Couteron, Nicolas Barbier (2020). Airborne Lidar Sampling Pivotal for Accurate Regional AGB Predictions from Multispectral Images in Forest-Savanna Landscapes . Remote Sensing, (12), pp. 1637.
  3. Maxime Réjou-Méchain, Nicolas Barbier, Pierre Couteron, Pierre Ploton, Grégoire Vincent, Martin Herold, Stéphane Mermoz, Sassan Saatchi, Jérôme Chave, Florian {de Boissieu} (2019). Upscaling forest biomass from field to satellite measurements: Sources of errors and ways to reduce them. Surveys in Geophysics, (40), pp. 881–911.
  4. Maxime Réjou-Méchain, Nicolas Barbier, Pierre Couteron, Pierre Ploton, Grégoire Vincent, Martin Herold, Stéphane Mermoz, Sassan Saatchi, Jérôme Chave, Florian de Boissieu, Jean-Baptiste Féret, Stéphane Momo Takoudjou, Raphaël Pélissier (2019). Upscaling Forest Biomass from Field to Satellite Measurements: Sources of Errors and Ways to Reduce Them. Surveys in Geophysics, (40), pp. 881–911, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-019-09532-0
  5. Suzanne Mariëlle Marselis, Hao Tang, John Armston, Katharine Abernethy, Alfonso Alonso, Nicolas Barbier, Pulchérie Bissiengou, Kathryn Jeffery, David Kenfack, Nicolas Labrière, Seung-Kuk Lee, Simon L. Lewis, Hervé Memiaghe, John R. Poulsen, Lee White, Ralph Dubayah (2019). Exploring the relation between remotely sensed vertical canopy structure and tree species diversity in Gabon. Environmental Research Letters, (14), pp. 094013, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2dcd
  6. Nicolas Labriere, Shengli Tao, Jerome Chave, Klaus Scipal, Thuy {Le Toan}, Katharine Abernethy, Alfonso Alonso, Nicolas Barbier, Pulchérie Bissiengou, TA?nia Casal (2018). In situ reference datasets from the TropiSAR and AfriSAR campaigns in support of upcoming spaceborne biomass missions. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, pp. 1–11.
  7. P. Ploton, N. Barbier, P. Couteron, C. M. Antin, N. Ayyappan, N. Balachandran, N. Barathan, J. -F. Bastin, G. Chuyong, G. Dauby, V. Droissart, J. -P. Gastellu-Etchegorry, N. G. Kamdem, D. Kenfack, M. Libalah, G. Mofack, S. T. Momo, S. Pargal, P. Petronelli, C. Proisy, M. Réjou-Méchain, B. Sonké, N. Texier, D. Thomas, P. Verley, D. Zebaze Dongmo, U. Berger, R. Pélissier (2017). Toward a general tropical forest biomass prediction model from very high resolution optical satellite images. Remote Sensing of Environment, (200), pp. 140–153.
  8. Nicolas Barbier, M. B. Libalah, John Katembo, Pierre Ploton, Vincent Droissart, Nicolas Texier, Narcisse Kamdem, Gaelle Viennois, Raphaël Pélissier, Pierre Couteron (2017). Pistes pour l’étude de la distribution des peuplements de Gilbertiodendron dewevrei comme signature des impacts climatiques ou anthropiques anciens. Pour Une écologie Historique en Afrique Centrale; AUF-IRD: Bondy, France, pp. 157–170.
  9. JP Vandeweghe, T. Stévart (2017). Le delta de l’Ogooué. NA.
  10. J.-F. Bastin, Nicolas Barbier, Maxime Réjou-Méchain, Adeline Fayolle, Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury, Danae Maniatis, Thalès de Haulleville, F. Baya, Hans Beeckman, D. Beina, {others} (2015). Seeing Central African forests through their largest trees . Scientific reports, (5).
  11. Simon L. Lewis, Bonaventure Sonké, Terry Sunderland, Serge K. Begne, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Geertje MF Van Der Heijden, Oliver L. Phillips, Kofi Affum-Baffoe, Timothy R. Baker, Lindsay Banin, others (2013). Above-ground biomass and structure of 260 African tropical forests . Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, (368), pp. 20120295.