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The Japanese Operational Programme for IGBP, finalized
by the Science Council of Japan (Japan IGBP Report no. 1, 1991), does not
correspond to the International Programme. Research projects related directly
to GCTE spread over Subjects 1-5 of Project III (Effects of Climatic Changes
on Terrestrial Ecosystems), Subject 3 of Project IV (Climate Analysis and
Modelling of Interactions between the Biosphere and the Geosphere) and
Subject 2 of Project VII (Interaction between the Global Environment and
Human Activities). This structure with the research system of Japanese
Agencies and Ministries produced many fragmental research activities which
have been poorly appreciated as a contribution to the international effort
of global change studies (IGBP). To overcome this situation and to promote
Japanese programme for GCTE, a subcommittee for GCTE was organized in the
National Committee for IGBP in 1992, internationally corresponding to the
SSC of GCTE. The task of the subcommittee was threefolds (Japan IGBP Report
no. 2, 1992). The first was to inform the international research programme
of GCTE among the researchers who were being (or not being) involved in
the global change issue in terrestrial ecosystems. The second was to coordinate
with the international programme the ongoing research projects which were
promoted more or less independent of each other. The third was to prepare
and promote a new research programme as a GCTE Core Research, and to contributes
to the international effort of GCTE. Core Research was defined as large-scale,
integrative research that is international in scope (IGBP, 1992).
To inform Japanese scientists the GCTE programme and to attract them to global change issues, GCTE symposia were organized on the occasions of annual meetings of the Botanical Society of Japan and the Ecological Society of Japan 6 times in 1991-1996. In the XV International Botanical Congress held at Yokohama in1993, nine symposia were alloted for GCTE research activities with great success. However, we failed to coordinate ongoing research activities of Agencies and Ministries with the international programme of GCTE. They had been promoted with their own interest but with little concern to the international programme. Organizing the TEMA-SSC in the subcommittee for GCTE, we prepared a new international research programme "Global Change Impacts on Terrestrial Ecosystems in Monsoon Asia" (TEMA) and submitted to the SSC of GCTE. GCTE-SSC accepted TEMA as a contribution to GCTE Core Research in December 1992. In 1994, the GCTE subcommittee was renewed. Although we are in charge of promoting the TEMA project, we have to figure out possibilities to propose new Core Research to contirubute international GCTE research effort. Another task we have to do is to survey ongoing GCTE-related research activities in Japan and to report them to GCTE-SSC as GCTE Regional/National Research activities. GCTE is an international research effort that is described in GCTE Operation Plan (IGBP, 1992). We have to organize new and ongoing research activities following the Operational Plan.
To launch the TEMA project, an international symposium (workshop) was held on "Global Change Impacts on Terrestrial Ecosystems in Monsoon Asia" in Tokyo in September 1993. The objectives were to overview terrestrial ecosystems in monsoon Asia, to assess possible effects of global change on the structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, to assess possible feedback effects to global carbon cycle, to exchange ideas and information on modelling dynamics of forest ecosystems responding to global change and finally to identify needed areas of additional research to predict the global change impacts on forest ecosystems in monsoon Asia. The proceedings were published in 1995 as a special issue of an international journal of Vegetatio as well as a book (Hirose and Walker 1995). Three study sites were established in 1994 - 1996 and studies are going on in the framework of the TEMA project: Mt. Kinabalu (Sabah, Malaysia), led by Dr. Kanehiro Kitayama of the Forest and Forest Product Research Institute, Tsukuba; Ogawa Forest (Fukushima Pref., Japan), led by Dr. Yosuke Matsumoto of the Forest and Forest Product Research Institute, Tsukuba; Yakushima (Kyushu, Japan), led by Dr. Masahiko Ohsawa of Chiba University, Chiba.
The project on Mt. Kinabalu emphasizes the analysis of structure of tropical forest ecosystems changing with altitude, land form and substrate. The study at Ogawa focuses mainly on the physiology of trees in relation to forest dynamics in the temperate deciduous forest region, while that at Yakushima focusing on the effect of disturbance and regeneration of forest ecosystems in the temperate evergreen forest region.
Contact Address
Tadaki Hirose
Chairman
GCTE-Japan Committee (Japan Committee of IGBP, Science Council of Japan)
Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University
Sendai 980, Japan
Email: hirose@mail.cc.tohoku.ac.jp
Query to page master ____ kohyama@ees.hokudai.ac.jp