Adjunct Faculty: Carlos Link

Carlos A. Link is a native Brazilian. He completed his Masters degree in Ecology at Campinas University (Brazil) and his PhD in Biology at Harvard University (USA). He is an Adjunct Professor of Ecology at the University of Brasilia. He has extensive experience in collaborating with Brazilian and international research teams (e.g. the Brazilian Long-Term Ecological Research program, Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, LBA NASA Ecology). He is the co-founder of Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (Belém) and a member of the scientific board of Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (São Paulo) and International Institute of Education of Brazil (Brasilia). He also coordinates a capacity building program on the ecology of climate change for non-scientists. His research areas include the Cerrado of Central Brazil. Deforestation rates have been higher in the Cerrado than in the Amazon rainforest, and soil erosion, fragmentation of ecosystems, fire, and the spread of exotic grasses are widespread and major threats. The focus of his research is to understand how the rapid pace of land use change in Cerrado alters the diversity and integrity of ecosystems across different scales, and their impacts on hydrology and carbon stocks and fluxes.

Example Publications:

Klink, C.A. & Machado, R.B. 2005. Conservation of the Brazilian Cerrado. Conservation Biology, 19 (3), in press.

Silva, J.F., M. Farinas, J. Felfili & C.A. Klink. 2005. Spatial heterogeneity, land use and conservation in the Cerrado region of Brazil. Journal of Biogeography, in press.

Oliveira, R., Bezerra, L., Pinto, F., Klink, C., Nepstad, D., Davidson, E. & Moreira, A. 2005. Soil water dynamics in Cerrado savanna communities of Central Brazil: assessing deep root function. Functional Ecology, accepted.