Aims and Philosophy of the CoffeeFlux Collaborative Platform The aim of Coffee-Flux is to assess carbon, nutrients, water and sediment Ecosystem Services (ES) at the scale of a coffee agroforestry watershed and additional experiments. Observation, experimentation, modelling and remote-sensing are combined, collecting data and calibrating models locally, then upscaling to larger regions. The project has been running continuously since 2009, in order to encompass seasonal and inter-annual fluctuations of coffee productivity and ecosystem services. Coffee-flux is a platform where collaborative research on coffee agroforestry is promoted: data are being shared between collaborators and positive interactions are enhanced. The philosophy is to concentrate several investigations on one specific site and for several years, to share a useful common experimental database, to develop modelling and to publish results in highly-ranked scientific journals. Applied research is also highly encouraged (e.g. C-Neutral certification, NAMA, Agronomy, etc.). Coffee-Flux benefits from infrastructure, easy access from CATIE and very good security, ready to welcome complementary scientific investigations and collaborations. The project is wide open to complementary projects, scientists and of course to students. The core data base is for sharing.

The Itatinga site is a long-term experimentation (started in 2008) that focus mainly on eucalyptus plantations. Our specific objectives are: - To understand the biogeochemical functioning of these fast-growing Eucalyptus plantations, and in particular the coupling between water, carbon, and nutrients cycles; - To use this information to develop eco-physiological models simulating the growth and balance of water, carbon and mineral elements of plantations; - To spatialize models from ground maps, satellite images and meteorological data; - To evaluate the environmental impacts and sustainability of plantations (impacts on water resources, soil fertility, regional climate. The experiment is located in Brazil, in the state of Sao Paulo. It is located at an average altitude of 800 m. Longitude / latitude 48°43'40.60''W / 22°58'4.50 ''S with an average annual temperature of 19.6 ° C and rainfall of the order of 1350 mm/year. The soil of the experiment is a ferralsol made of 72% sand, 15% clay, 3% silt. The site equipment includes a flux tower in a clonal Eucalyptus plantation, where nutrient cycles are also monitored. It also includes clonal tests, experimental plots that aim to study the effects of partial exclusion of rainfall and potassium fertilization on the cycles of mineral elements, carbon and water, and finally experimental plots comparing the ecophysiological / biogeochemical functioning of monospecific and plurispecific plantations. This study of the impact of tree diversity on the functioning of forest ecosystems is conducted on high-growing exotic species (mixture of Eucalyptus grandis and Acacia mangium) and on native species of Mata Atlântica (biome in which is located the Itatinga site). themes : Biogeochemistry of forest plantations, Ecological intensification of tropical forest plantations.

Rubberflux is a flux tower site aiming at providing a complete picture of CO2, water and energy budget of a rubber tree plantation using the eddy-covariance (EC) method combined with ground-based measurements of carbon/water stocks and flux among the different components of the ecosystem. This approach allows quantifying flux (NEE an ETR), partitioning them among tree organs, soil, understorey vegetation (etc.…), and eventually understanding the interactions with climate and the availability of soil resources (water, nutrients). This is a common approach to 3 other flux tower sites on tropical tree plantations managed by CIRAD’s researchers within the umbrella of the SOERE F-ORE-T network. The Rubberflux site is located in Thailand, about 140km east of Bangkok. It was set-up in 2006 in a 12 years rubber plantation of the Chachoengsao Rubber Research Centre (CRRC), a research facility of the Rubber Research Institute of Thailand (RRIT). The collaboration with CRRC staff has also permitted to implement studies on a chronosequence of rubber plantations. A CIRAD’s researcher has been permanently based in Thailand since then to ensure the functioning of the site in collaboration with the staff of CRRC and a research team from Kasetsart University (KU). The research works conducted on the Rubberflux site have been funded by CIRAD and KU with substantial contribution of the Thai Research Fund (TRF), the SOERE FORET and the French Embassy in Thailand.