Dr. Katja Rembold, EFForTS/CRC 990 Researcher, shares
her research experience on Land Cover Change and
Its Consequences for Plant Diversity


Dr. Katja Rembold from Goettingen University, Germany was the speaker for BIOTROP´s Fourth Quarterly Technical Seminar Series held on 25 August 2014 at the Center´s headquarter in Bogor. The seminar´s topic was: "From project sketch to journal publications: Research on Land Cover Change and its Consequences for Plant diversity"

Dr. Katja Rembold shared her research experience during the past two years in running the project on "Investigating the consequences of rainforest transformation into agricultural system for plant diversity in Sumatera, Indonesia". The project was a collaborative German-Indonesian research of EFForTS Centre (Ecological and Socioeconomic Functions of Tropical Lowland Rainforest Transformation Systems Centre), part of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC 990), a research cooperation project between the Göttingen University and the Universitas of Jambi (UNJA), Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB), Universitas Tadulako (UNTAD) and the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI). Their research projects were on the land-use effects on multiple facets of vascular plant diversity. Plot-based species inventories were conducted in Jambi Province (Sumatera) at local to regional scales across four transformation systems (forest, jungle rubber, rubber and oil palm plantations) replicated in two different landscapes (Harapan Rainforest and Taman Nasional Bukit Duabelas).
The presentation was providing information not only about methods and results, but also breakthrough highlights and setbacks of their project. Field work involved was more than only data collection and was usually linked with huge amount of planning, organization, and administrative issues. Usually even with perfect preparation, not everything worked out as planned in the field.

BIOTROP Deputy Director for Program Dr. Jess C. Fernandez welcomed the 68 participants consisting of 15 staffs of LIPI (Bogor and Cibodas Botanical Gardens), 11 Universities staffs (IPB and Sam Ratulangi University.), 1 from private companies and 41 post graduate students from IPB. He also expressed BIOTROP´s appreciation to Dr. Katja Rembold for accepting the invitation to be the Center´s speaker for the event. (SST & IW)