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Tropical Forest Diversity and Dynamism

Findings from a Large-Scale Plot Network

Long-term Forest Dynamics Plots (FDPs) allow ecologists to explain patterns in diversity and dynamics in tropical forests around the world. In this collection, Elizabeth Losos and Egbert Giles Leigh Jr. assemble extensive standardized data—collected here in one location for the first time—from sixteen tropical FDPs and synthesize the findings, putting these unique and valuable plots in a global context by highlighting the utility of the collected data for conservation and forest management.

Written by experts in the field of tropical ecology, Tropical Forest Diversity and Dynamism will appeal to students and professionals with an interest in community ecology and patterns of diversity.

688 pages | 4 halftones, 130 line drawings, 170 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2004

Biological Sciences: Botany, Conservation, Ecology, Natural History, Tropical Biology and Conservation

Reviews

"The book’s main strength is that it summarizes a truly impressive amount of data about tropical forest structure, diversity, and turnover."

Steven D. Allison | Quarterly Review of Biology

"The 104 contributors to the 38 chapters in this well-edited volume introduce the 16 CTFS plots and summarize the findings from their collectively and individually impressive efforts. . . . Overall, the CTFS researchers have set a hard-to-achieve standard for investigations of the origins and maintenance of tree species diversity in tropical forests."

Francis E. Putz | Ecology

"[The book] will be of benefit to eclectic postgraduates and field researchers looking to develop, refresh and advance their own theories, and in particular to those wishing to compare and contrast their own findings from permanent sample plots with tropical forests elsewhere."

Howard Rogers | Austral Ecology

Table of Contents

Preface
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Plots
Part 3: Habitat Specialization and Species Rarity in Forest Dynamics Plots
Part 4: Local Variation in Canopy Disturbance and Soil Structure
Part 5: The Diversity of Tropical Trees: Background
Part 6: The Diversity of Tropical Trees: The Role of Pest Pressure
Part 7: Forest Dynamics Plots
List of Contributors
Index

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