Monoterpene Compositions of Three Forested Ecosystems in the Central Amazon Basin

Monoterpenes play fundamental roles as secondary metabolites in forested ecosystems and as gas and liquid phase secondary organic aerosol (SOA) precursors in their surrounding atmospheres. While the chemical pathways involved in ozonolysis driven SOA formation from individual monoterpene precursors is known, local and regional chemical transport models are still lacking observations of speciated monoterpenes from forested atmospheres. Here, we present high vertically resolved mixing ratio profiles of speciated monoterpenes from the ambient air of three neighboring forested ecosystems in the central Amazon Basin. Two well-drained plateau primary forests and one seasonally flooded valley forest were sampled during the afternoon hours (13:00 - 16:30) on walkup towers from the initiation of the 2013-14 wet season through the onset of the 2014 dry season (Nov 2013 - Jul 2014). Ambient mixing ratios in all three ecosystems were greatest in the upper canopy with secondary sources of some monoterpenes within the sub-canopies. Relative vertical compositions of monoterpenes did not change significantly throughout the seasons for either ecosystem type. Both ecosystem types were dominated by d-limonene (up to 1.6 ppb) with equally strong mixing ratios of alpha-pinene in the valley compared to the much weaker a-pinene mixing ratios on the plateaus (up to 200 ppt). The highly reactive cis- and trans-beta-ocimene were consistently present in both ecosystems (up to 250 ppt) with the addition of equally high camphene mixing ratios in the valley forest (up to 200 ppt) which is present in the plateau ecosystems in low quantities (50 ppt). With respect to clean atmosphere mixing ratios of 10 ppb ozone, lifetimes are below 2 hours for camphene and below 30 minutes for ocimene, suggesting a potentially large impact on local and possibly regional ozonolysis and subsequent SOA composition.