INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT AND NEWS Examining soil/ecosystem respiration in the Amazon basin Jo ¨rg Matschullat 1 • Roberval Monteiro Bezerra de Lima 2 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017 Abstract The Brazilian–German project EcoRespira- Amazon currently conducts a study of soil respiration and soil chemistry in the Brazilian Amazon basin that com- paratively examines forested land with post-forest land cover. The Amazon region, long recognized as a key component of the global carbon cycle and a tipping point in the global climate system, covers an area of 7 million km 2 ; this study provides representative regional data that will help to fill existing knowledge gaps and to verify (or fal- sify) current assumptions on the role of humid tropical forest regions in the climate system. Ecosystem respiration is an integral part of carbon and nitrogen cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. Respiration involves gas fluxes of CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O, which encom- pass aboveground plant respiration, soil organic matter- derived respiration (microbial decay processes) and root- derived respiration. Currently there is a bias on data from temperate climate and a distinct lack of field data from tropical regions (Oertel et al. 2016). Due to the sheer size of the Amazon region, there is tremendous CO 2 uptake by photosynthesis in its forests. At the same time, carbon is exported from the ecosystem through decomposition and transport of matter, logging and respiration. This leads to the question: how much do land-cover changes such as deforestation affect soil respiration? Currently the Brazil- ian–German project EcoRespira-Amazon investigates soil respiration and soil chemistry in areas ranging from pri- mary forest to agricultural fields in terra firma areas of the Brazilian Amazon. The project is defined by a series of research questions that target soil respiration rates/changes and element pool sizes along transects that represent various types of land cover and land use. The rapid turnover times of organic matter in tropical rainforest environments and the ecolog- ical role of the Amazon forest biome in water recycling, oxygen production, biodiversity, etc., motivate this project to explore beyond its known vulnerability. Modelling does not yet serve to give satisfactory answers—neither on element pool sizes nor on soil and ecosystem respiration. Collaborating partners in the EcoRespira-Amazon pro- ject are: Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Cor- poration), IPAAM (Amazonas Environmental Protection Institute), UFAM (Federal University of Amazonas), INMET (National Institute of Meteorology) and the Inter- disciplinary Environmental Research Center (IO ¨ Z) at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg (TUBAF), Germany. Two fieldwork campaigns have been completed during the wet season (2016 and 2017), and one during a dry season (2016). A total of thirteen locations, each with two to three sub-sites, represent forest at each location as well as post-forest land cover that ranges from pastureland to cropland to agroforest woodlots. Each time, the team covers an area of roughly 740,000 km 2 in the state of Amazonas. In principle, the EcoRespira-Amazon project follows ideas and methods applied over the last 10–20 years in & Jo ¨rg Matschullat matschul@tu-freiberg.de Roberval Monteiro Bezerra de Lima roberval.lima@embrapa.br 1 Interdisciplinary Environmental Research Centre, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Brennhausgasse 14, 09599 Freiberg, Germany 2 Embrapa Western Amazon, Research and Development, Rod AM 010 KM 29, Manaus, Amazonas CEP 69010-970, Brazil 123 Environ Earth Sci (2017) 76:141 DOI 10.1007/s12665-016-6370-2