Life in the Treetops

A New Era of Scientific Exploration in

the World’s Forest Canopies

By
Andrew Mitchell
Director, Global Canopy Programme
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

GCP STEERING COMMITTEE

UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office
GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES FUND
*
CHK Charities
Ernest Kleinwort Charitable Trust
John Ellerman Foundation
Darwin Initiative
What is Life?
Where did it come from?
 Imagine a weather forecast on our other planets.
200 mph winds in the morning, acid rain by the afternoon,
Gigantic volcanic eruptions overnight.
The Earth IS special. Only here has life evolved.
…perhaps its greatest creation?

The Rainforest Canopy!

The most diverse expression

of life on earth
 What do trees do?

6CO2 + 6H2O C6H1206 + 6O2

Take carbon dioxide from the air,
plus water, add sunlight and leaves
and they produce sugar and oxygen.
A simple formula -
but look what the canopy creates…
Greatest
Diversity of
Life anywhere!
What is the
canopy like?

Tree crowns do not touch

 A Hanging Garden
2/3 Epiphytes
…of life

Epiphytes cover branches high

above ground providing homes
For many species.
 The canopy has curious lifestyles:.
Some frogs climb into
bromeliads up on tree branches
to place their tadpoles in
water pools trapped in the
leaves. (Dendrobates pumilio)

Then the mother brings a single unfertilised egg

each day to feed the tadpole!
There are canopy
highways in the
trees. Animals
memorise them like
we remember a
favourite walk.
To move around
you must be agile,
be able to leap,
glide,
…………or fly.

(Spider monkey)
Canopies create
homes for animals
in many different
Ways.

A mouse lemur
from Madagascar
Canopies change our
way of thinking
about life.
Sometimes bats
thought to be rare
from scientific studies
on the ground
are found
to be common
in the canopy.
Nobody had looked
for them there.
(Tube nosed fruit bat)
Canopies contain
many flowers and fruits.
Mammals, birds, insects,
even lizards pollinate
them. Many are
pollinated by the wind.
Flowers produce nectar to attract pollinators.
This lorikeet from Fiji is cutting into the base of
a flower to get the nectar and will carry pollen
on its feathers to another tree.
The red ‘aril’ on this seed is rich in protein
and is coloured red to attract a bird to eat
it.

This nutmeg seed will be dropped

after passing through the bird, perhaps a pigeon,
to germinate away from the parent tree.
 Animals communicate
in the canopy.

Bright colours,
B and
Sound
odours, enable them
to communicate
among the dense
green leaves.
The howler
monkey is
one of the
loudest
creatures
in the
canopy.
Its calls warn
groups feeding
on leaves to
stay away from
each other.
Many predators live
in the canopy….

The blunt headed

tree snake
snatches small
lizards from leaves.
It has a special spine
enabling it to reach
across gaps
between branches.
 Clouded leopard

The clouded leopard is the most abroreal of

the big cats. It climbs trees in Asia’s forests and
feeds on monkeys, birds and small mammals.
 The harpy eagle
Harpy eagle hunts monkeys
and sloths
in the canopies of
Latin American
forests.
 New canopy
primate
species…

…are still
found

Today!
Studying canopy
primates is hard.

Species, such as
this Müeller’s
gibbon in Borneo,
move fast and
live high in the canopy.
Three million years
ago, our ancestors
left the canopy to
begin a life on the
ground.

Now were going

back!
So - how did scientists begin exploring
this unknown world?
William Beebe, an
American
oceanographer, was
the first scientist
to think about exploring
the forest canopy.
He never got there but
invented the
‘bathysphere’ for
exploring the
bottom of the ocean!
 "Yet another continent of life
remains to be discovered, not
upon the earth, but one or two
hundred feet above it,
extending over thousands of
square miles … There awaits
a rich harvest for the naturalist
who overcomes the obstacles -
- gravitation, ants, thorns,
rotten trunks -- and mounts to
the summits of the … trees.”

1818 William Beebe

The first problem…
How to get into
the canopy?

Trees are as high as

85 metres in the Asian
tropics.
…and have few
branches!
The first full scientific expedition to set out
to explore the canopy was from
Oxford University in 1929 to British Guiana
Equipment was carried in by river to
Moraballi Creek
Canons were used to fire ropes
up into the canopy to place a
wooden chair to haul
researchers up. Local climbers
proved to be better!
Max Nicholson, below, was the
first Scientist to spend the night
in the canopy. He became a
founder of the World Wildlife
Fund.
 In the 1980’s, teams led by Andrew Mitchell from UK (left), built
aerial walkways to compare the forest canopy in Panama, Costa Rica,
Team shot b and w slide
Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia.
These walkways were
light-weight and portable.

Many canopy walkways

now exist around the
world, both for science,
education and tourism.
Later, ropes and specialised climbing
equipment became the most
popular method of gaining access to the
canopy - for research.
In the 1980’s a
French team, led by
Prof. Francis Hallé
came up with a new
idea.

A hot air balloon and a

raft.

Many people thought

it was crazy!
But it worked!

Professor Francis Hallé, 1980’s

Next Hallé dreamed
of using an airship
This too was a success!
The airship is the largest
hot air balloon in the
world.
Scientists are carried
below in a small raft
from which they
collect specimens across
the canopy.
A pilot flies the airship
which is powered by
a propeller.
Close up balloon and pretzel scan from
geographical

It can carry a much

bigger raft!
Scientists use this like an island
in the tree tops, for
1-3 weeks.
The airship can
move it to a new place.
In the 1990’s…
- The Canopy
‘Bubble’.

A helium filled
balloon. IKOS Tree House

Also
developed by
the French
Canopy
Consortium
The ‘bubble’
allows single
researchers to
access the top Bubble and net
of the canopy.

A day’s work for the

biologist and
photographer
Laurent Pyot!
 The ‘IKOS’, a kind of
Nice ICOS pictree-house,
metal
is assembled
by researchers in
a tree crown.

Three Scientists can

live there and make
observations.
There is even a small
kitchen.
In 1990
Dr Alan
Smith
dreamed of
putting a crane
into the
rainforest.

A new era
of canopy
exploration
was born!
Alan Smith, right, with
Andrew Mitchell,
testing the first
Smithsonian canopy
crane in Panama.

The ‘gondola’
suspended below the
crane ‘jib’ has made
canopy access safe and
easy for all.
 Crane picture from air
helicopter

Ten canopy cranes are now in use

in forests around the world.
Helicopters are used to put the cranes in.
 Sequence of shots with gondola and cooler bag

Equipment can be easily loaded from the ground

Safe
access!
to
1 hectare
of
forest

50 metres up!
 Scientists are still
creating new
inventions to reach
the canopy.
COPAS
‘Copas’ is being built in
French Guiana.
The
Canopy
Glider
is a new
canopy
exploration
vehicle
to be
tested
by the
Canopy
Consortium.
So what have scientists discovered
about the canopy?
 Many new and strange species!

Moths from enchanted canopy

 On Project IBISCA Andreas Floren collects insects by fogging
tree crowns with ‘pyrethrum’ which only stuns them. They fall to
the ground. Most wake up and escape, but some are collected and
preserved for study.

40 taxonomists took part in this major study

of life on earth, in Panama 2004/5. 1 million
specimens have to be identified.
 Insect boxes

Many canopy insect species have never

been seen or described by scientists
before. In some Asian forests it can be
70-80% of the catch!
From studies like this, scientists now
believe that 40% of all terrestrial
biodiversity exists in the canopy.

What about under the soil or sea?

Best
global
estimate?

5-15 million
species exist
on earth. The
truth lies in the
Nobody knows that either! canopy.
 How did evolution
design this species?

Weird eyed inesct

Catydid 1/2/ pics

The canopy is a
place full of
complexity.

It is a
powerhouse of
interactions
between animals
and plants.
The Canopy is the
primary interface
between life and the
atmosphere for 90% of
the world’s living
biomass. Life and the atmosphere
Clouds and forests / mist water droplets
This makes it very
important for
understanding how the
Biosphere interacts
with the Atmosphere.

The Amazon is
probably one of the
world’s greatest
Biosphere-Atmosphere
Hotspots.
We have learned
to respect the
canopy.

John misty pictures

It can be a
dangerous
place to work,
unless
safe methods
are used.
 Mark Moffett

James
Aldred

Nalini
Nadkarni

Canopy explorers are pioneers!

It is also a new frontier for discovery!

An inspires…
the human heart
The forest canopy is
one of the most beautiful places on earth
toBalloon
explore.
and river in Borneo
It is full of surprises!
A three toed sloth high above ground.

Post card sloth

Why are Forest Canopies So Important?
Life
- 40% of species on earth’s surface
- Value to medicine & agriculture unknown
- Destroying canopies alters evolution forever
Atmosphere
- Influence hydrology and precipitation over 45M
ha of land
- Rising CO2 alters canopy function
- ‘Green ocean clouds’ created by VOC’s may be disrupted
People
- Pollination services valued at US$12 billion per annum
- Carbon sequestration trading valued at US$3Trillion
- Flowering patterns disrupted by global change
- Flood risk / disease could increase with impacts on canopy
Source: OZANNE et al. (2003) Biodiversity meets the atmosphere: A global view of forest canopies. SCIENCE 301
Millions of tons
of carbon stored in
wood is
released into the
atmosphere when
trees are burned.

This increases
Global warming.
 CO2
Towers like these on the
Large Scale Biological
Assessment (LBA) in the
Amazon measure the
movement (fluxes) of
gases such as carbon
dioxide, oxygen and
water vapour
in and out
of the forest.
 For over 400,000 years there has been about 240
parts
Dr per million of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.
Antonio
Todaya the instrument on this tower is showing it has
Nobre,
researcher at risen to 381 ppm.
INPA,
Much
Nationalof this is due to emissions from human activity.
Institute for
Amazonian
Research,
takes a
reading from a
gas analyser
on a 55 metre
tower, north
of Manaus.
 Lemuroid Ringtail Possum - BIOCLIM Model

Present + 1 deg. + 3.5 deg.

In Queensland, Australia, computer models of

climate change predict that many
species could die out because their
habitat (red colour) may dry out in the next
46%50-80 years.
0%.
Could a similar process happen in the Amazon?
Ref: Williams, SE. (2003) A Report to the Biological Diversity Advisory Committee,
Environment Australia, Canberra
 To investigate some of these problems
canopy scientists decided the set up the..

A groundbreaking initiative linking

major studies of forest canopies
addressing biodiversity and climate
change worldwide.
 CANOPY
DATABASE

They set out to link

canopy studies
Worldwide and
create a research plan
The GCP Steering Committee and Focal countries
• Dr Pierre Charles Dominique,
COPAS, France
• Professor Roger Kitching, Madagascar
Griffith University, Australia
• Professor Nigel Stork,
James Cook University, Australia
• Dr Tohru Nakashizuka, Brazil
Kyoto University, Japan
• Professor Dieter Anhuf,
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Talita Fontoura,
University de Estadual, Brazil Ghana
• Dr Joe Wright,
STRI, Smithsonian, Panama
• Andrew Mitchell,
Director, Global Canopy Foundation, UK India
• Dr Margaret Lowman,
Marie Selby Botanical Garden, USA
• Dr Nalini Nadkarni,
Evergreen State University, USA
• Professor Cao Min Malaysia
Xishuangbanna Botanical Garden, China
GCP published its new
20:20 Vision
for Canopy Science
in 2003.
 GCP 20:20 Vision for Canopy Science
• Five focal countries: Brazil, Ghana, Madagascar, Malaysia, India
• Targeted research, designed to investigate impact of climate change
on canopy biodiversity using ‘whole forest observatories’.
• Demonstration projects on value of canopy ecotourism and
canopy horticulture for sustainable development of local communities
• Monitoring and early warning assessment network
• Information to key stakeholders including governments
• Phase I - Scoping the project 2001-4
• Phase II - Testing and financing 2005-7
• Phase III - Begin Project Implementation 2008….
GCP is nowClimbing
helping to expertise
support FCO logo
training courses in Brazil,
Darwin
and other countries.

At University of Ouro Preto

with funding from
the Brasilan and
British governments.
(UK Foreign and Commonwealth
Office - Global Opportunities Fund)
..and other donors.
GCP Basic Canopy
Access Proficiency
(BCAP) Courses
enable students and
professionals to learn
modern safe methods
of accessing the
forest canopy.

BCAP Courses
 GCP is also helping to
develop canopy ecotourism
to provide sustainable
development opportunities
for local communities
worldwide.
Model for a canopy ecotourism
project planned for Madagascar

Interpretaion Centre
Field Station

Research Capacity Building

Forest Restoration Satellite Mapping

In 2005 GCP received UN Backing
for a major new initiative:
Whole Forest Observatories: a global
network for monitoring canopy
biodiversity and climate change
 Project Partners
GEF Agency - UNEP United Nations Environment Programme

IEA (International Execution Agency)

GCP - UK Global Canopy Programme

Current NEAs (National Execution Agencies)

Brazil - INPA Nat. Inst for Amazonian Res.
Ghana - CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial Res.
India - ATREE Ashoka Trust for Res. in Ecol. and the Env.
Madagascar - MICET Madagascar Inst. For Cons. of the Trop. Env.
Malaysia - ITBC Institute for Tropical Biology Conservation.
 The Global Canopy Research Network.

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Existing Canopy Cranes GCP Proposed new Canopy Cranes

! Existing Fluxnet Towers New UNEP/GCP Whole,Forest Observatories
 With UNEP, GCP is planning a network of
‘Whole Forest Observatories’ across the tropics.
In Brazil Ghana, India, Malaysia and later China.
 A canopy crane will provide access
- from leaf tip to root tip - at each Observatory.
Targeted research, training and community
development projects will be carried out at each
site and at associated sites.
The Budget?
It is a lot of
money.
But…It is less
than half of
what a major
international
footballer gets
paid. Who can
say whose
game has more
value?
How much
do we value
Life
and our
Atmosphere..

for People?

A challenge
for our future,
..in the canopy
high frontier!
www.globalcanopy.org