Blood, sweat and tears may be a bit of an exaggeration. Yet, we did shed blood to myriads of insects, this time including mosquitos, we sure did sweat it out daily, but I do not remember tears.

The last (so far) five weeks of tough fieldwork, more than 5000 kilometres by 4W vehicle and lots of rain. We likely experienced a rainy season that was much more normal than in 2016. Again, everything looked different in comparison to the previous campaign. Yet, we felt more familiar with all locations and sites. So much indeed that we miss many places that we will likely not see so quickly again.

It was sobering to see how at some locations, forest diminished further. At one site, where we had dense forest in phase 02 still, we were now installing rings and chamber systems on barren ground with a fair view to a far away horizon. For data and results, check the project pages in more detail. We keep updating as the processed material comes in.

At this point a big Thank You to the field crew with Julia Becher, Gilvan Coimbra Martins, Roberval Monteiro Bezzera de Lima, Sophie von Fromm and Kamal Zurba. You guys are great.

Another five weeks of tough fieldwork, almost 6000 kilometres this time not under water but as a dust bath for a change. The drought conditions, particularly in southern Amazonas state, are severe already – ad the dry season is not over. Following the severe drought events of 2005, 2010 and 2015 (the latter strongly influenced by El Nino), 2016 might become another record season.

For us, it was amazing to learn how different both the forested and the post-forest land-cover areas feel and behave in the dry season – and how intense and severe this seasonal difference can be. For data and results, check the project pages in more detail. We keep updating as the processed material comes in.

At this point a big Thank You to the field crew with Carolin Schroeder, Gilvan,Coimbra Martins, Roberval Monteiro Bezzera de Lima, Sophie von Fromm and Thomas Drauschke.

On June 28, 2016, Sophie von Fromm highly successfully defended her Bachelor thesis, entitled “Soil respiration and chemistry in the Amazon basin”. Her work has been written in a very fine concise English. It presents the CO2-flux data, the CNS values from TOP soil material and delivers clear and smart hypothesis that are contextually discussed and the results intelligently interpreted — a truly fine academic start of the project. The thesis is available upon request (pdf file).

The new Freiberg team, consisting of the students Sophie von Fromm, Carolin Schröder and Thomas Drauschke – under the wings of project leader Jörg Matschullat – are busy preparing for the next field trip. Their flights leave on July 09, and their return is expected for August 12, 2016. In these week before departure, equipment tests, updates of equipment to cater to encountered challenges and intense laboratory work to present the latest results in Manaus keep everyone busy.

The Brazilian team under the guidance of Dr. Roberval de Lima is busy preparing and organizing the site access for the next campaign. Team member Gilvan Coimbra Martins has been running additional respiration experiments on various additional sites in the meantime.

On April 20, 2016, our project EcoRespira-Amazon has been selected as their flagship project amongst the NoPa activities. We feel honoured and very happy about this significant recognition from both DAAD and GIZ. We will do our very best to further justify this decision in the future.