IRES: Ecological Resilience of Afromontane Forests

This IRES project engages U.S. undergraduate and graduate students in research on the long-term climate and environmental history and resilience of the Afromontane forests of the Usambara Mountains in northeastern Tanzania, an area widely known as a global biodiversity hotspot, rich with plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth. However, changing rainfall patterns, urban development, and expanding agriculture are endangering the mountain ecosystems. This IRES project gives participating students the opportunity to explore how these forests have responded to past environmental changes to better understand future impacts. Through research experiences with scientists in the United States, Tanzania, and Germany, participating students are helping to reconstruct the region’s long-term ecological history and develop conservation plans for the forests. Under the leadership of Bryant University, in collaboration with Tanzanian and German researchers, this IRES project investigates the ecological history of the Usambara Mountains to reveal past forest responses and inform potential future resilience. Through the student research activities, U.S. students receive preparatory training at Bryant, conduct fieldwork and sediment core sampling in Tanzania in collaboration with the University of Dar es Salaam, and laboratory analysis in Germany at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. This project is the first effort to retrieve Early-to-Mid Holocene, and possibly even older, sediments from the Usambaras. By analyzing multiple paleoenvironmental indicators, this research produces a new ecological resilience model for eastern Africa and contributes foundational data to the study of human-environment interactions. The project emphasizes training and mentorship, international collaboration, and ethical community engagement, ensuring that both local partners and students benefit from the research and its long-term impacts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.