SuperSites

Robson Creek Rainforest SuperSite

TERN’s Robson Creek Rainforest SuperSite is on the Atherton Tablelands, in Danbulla National Park, within the Wet Tropics World Heritage area. With a tropical monsoon climate the rainfall is seasonal with approximately 60% falling between January and March. The landform is moderately inclined with a low relief. The plot is situated at approximately 720m above sea level and immediately to the north of the site the Lamb Range rises sharply to 1276 m. The vegetation is classified as a mix of complex mesophyll, and simple notophyll vine rainforest on granite and meta-sediment with a mean canopy height of 25-30 m. The traditional owners in this area are the Tableland Yidinji People.

Explore the Robson Creek Rainforest SuperSite with our interactive Walkthrough here.

Site Infrastructure & Characteristics

Eddy-covariance flux tower
1 ha core plot
25 ha forest dynamics plot
Weather station
Acoustic sensors (5)
Phenocams (3 above canopy)
Sap flow system
Soil water content, soil water potential, soil temperature sensors
COSMOS soil moisture sensor
Airborne LiDAR and hyperspectral datasets calibrated using SLATS star transects, leaf sampling, tree structure and LAI measurements

Vegetation type: Simple Notophyll Vine Forest
Elevation: ~700 m
Rainfall: ~2236 mm/yr
Mean Temperature: ~19.4°C
Soils: Acidic, dystrophic, brown dermosol, developed in alluvium

Site Research

Research using the Robson Creek Rainforest SuperSite aims to answer these key questions:

How are the biota (in particular locally endemic species) changing in form, frequency and distribution and what are the drivers for this?
Does the vegetation represent a stable structure (overstorey versus understory dynamics) or has climate change affected it?
Which taxa of organisms are the most sensitive to local climate change and how can these be assembled into an accurate biodiversity monitoring tool?
What are the fundamental vertical and lateral energy, carbon, water and nutrient stocks and flows in the tropical forests of north Queensland?
How are these stocks and flows responding to past management and climate change and how are they likely to respond in the future?
How important is the connectivity between these ecosystems for hydrology, faunal movement and as refugia under conditions of past and future climate change?

The Robson Creek Rainforest SuperSite’s 25 ha vegetation survey plot has been set up for inclusion in the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Center for Tropical Forest Science – Forest Global Earth Observatory (CTFS-ForestGEO) global network of forest research plots. This network is dedicated to the study of tropical and temperate forest function and diversity.

Featured Dataset

This dataset consists of measurements of the exchange of energy and mass between the surface and the atmospheric boundary-layer in tropical forest using eddy covariance techniques.