Mount Merapi

Tropical volcanic ecosystems, particularly in Asia, have been relatively understudied. Mt. Merapi is one of the major active volcanoes on the Island of Java. In Yogyakarta Province, Mt. Merapi is located approximately 30 kilometres north of Yogyakarta. Mt. Merapi is representative of the landforms, soils and vegetation on a volcanic mountain that typify a large portion of montane ecosystems in Java. Merapi has different characteristic of nuées ardentes or pyroclastic flows compared with other volcanoes, and it has become the reference volcano for its nuées ardentes, known as the ‘Merapi type’. Mt. Merapi volcano provides an opportunity to study species establishment and ecosystem succession following nuées ardentes events which essentially reset the successional clock of the montane forest. Rufford Small Grants for Conservation kindly support Bali Botanical Garden on an expedition for biodiversity observation following 2010 eruption of Mount Merapi to gain information on the establishment of plant and bird species diversity following the 2010 catastrophic eruption of Mt. Merapi.