Pasoh

In 1986, the second Forest Dynamics Plot was initiated in peninsular Malaysia in collaboration between the Forest Research Institute Malaysia, ForestGEO/Harvard University, and STRI. Since the project's initiation, the National Institute for Environmental Studies and affiliations in Japan including Kyoto University, Hiroshima University and Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute has become project partners. The 50-ha plot is located in a primary forest area of the Pasoh Forest Reserve, a lowland dipterocarp forest, a type of evergreen tropical moist forest. The area is aseasonal and has a flat terrain. The first census was completed in 1989, and has been repeated every five years since then. This plot contains more than 800 species and approximately 340,000 trees. Many of the plot's species are commercially important and are the focus of intensive demographic study. Furthermore, analyses of the human uses of the Pasoh forest and economic valuations of forest resources based on Pasoh FDP data have been conducted. In collaboration with the Japanese institutions, micro climate related studies, soil respiration and phenology, among other studies have been conducted adjacent the 50-ha plot but still within the reserve.