9722591 McNabb This U.S.-Brazil award will support a research collaboration between Drs. Ken McNabb and Graeme Lockaby of Auburn University to work with Dr. Jose Leonardo de Moraes Goncalves at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil on a study of soil organic matter fluxes in Amazonian forests: natural vs. intensively managed systems. The question of concern to these researchers is whether intensive management activities like mechanical harvesting and site preparation, fertilization, mechanical and chemical weed control, and the use of single species/clones negatively impact long term site productivity. The researchers will look at soil organic matter (SOM) fluxes as indicators of long term sustainability and will make a comparison of soil carbon inputs, soil carbon fractions, and the physical and chemical differences between intensively managed plantations and immediately adjacent undisturbed natural forest. It is their hypothesis that there will be quantitative and qualitative differences in soil carbon fluxes between the two systems, and the researchers will identify and quantify these differences. ***
