Peatlands can be found naturally throughout the Andes mountains and are an understudied ecosystem in terms of their roles in greenhouse gas cycles. There is a long history of disturbance of these peatlands by ditching to drain the water table for agriculture or ruminant grazing. This alteration to the site hydrology impacts the microclimate conditions of the site and alters the patterns of greenhouse gas cycling. The impacts of these historical disturbance patterns is beginning to be better understood and targeted ecosystem restoration projects are being performed.

The Guatavita field site is located near Bogota, Colombia and is a intensive monitoring site that contains both ditched and preserved peatland areas. A paired approach is being taken to understand the impacts of ditching on the ecosystem functioning of the site. Two Eddy Covariance towers collect continuous flux measurements from the system, while targeted chamber campaigs are used to understand spatial variability of ecosystem fluxes within the footprint of the tower.

This project is a collaboration between Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Michigan Technological University, and the United States Forest Service.