Tropical forests represent the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and play a key role in hydrology, carbon storage and exchange. Many of the human-induced pressures these regions are facing, e.g. fragmentation and deforestation, have been widely reported and well documented. However, there have been surprisingly few efforts to synthesize cutting-edge science in the area of tropical forest interaction with atmospheric change. At a time when our global atmosphere is undergoing a period of rapid change, both in terms of climate and in the cycling of essential elements such as carbon and nitrogen, a thorough and up-to-date analysis is now timely. This research level text, suitable for graduate level students as well as professional researchers in plant ecology, tropical forestry, climate change science, and conservation biology, explores the vigorous contemporary debate as to how rapidly tropical forests may be affected by atmospheric change, and what this may mean for their future.
Author(s): Yadvinder Malhi, Oliver Phillips
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 280
Contents......Page 10
Preface......Page 6
Contributors......Page 14
PART I: Contemporary atmospheric change in the tropics......Page 18
1 Late twentieth-century patterns and trends in the climate of tropical forest regions......Page 20
2 Twenty-first century atmospheric change and deforestation: potential impacts on tropical forests......Page 34
3 Forest–climate interactions in fragmented tropical landscapes......Page 48
PART II: Atmospheric change and ecosystem processes......Page 56
4 Predicting the impacts of global environmental changes on tropical forests......Page 58
5 Ecophysiological and biogeochemical responses to atmospheric change......Page 74
6 Tropical forests dynamics in response to a CO[sub(2)]-rich atmosphere......Page 84
7 The effects of drought on tropical forest ecosystems......Page 92
PART III: Observations of contemporary change in tropical forests......Page 102
8 Ecological responses of Amazonian forests to El Niño-induced surface fires......Page 104
9 Late twentieth-century trends in tree-community composition in an Amazonian forest......Page 114
10 Late twentieth-century patterns and trends in Amazon tree turnover......Page 124
11 Late twentieth-century trends in the biomass of Amazonian forest plots......Page 146
12 Late twentieth-century trends in the structure and dynamics of South American forests......Page 160
13 Error propagation and scaling for tropical forest biomass estimates......Page 172
PART IV: The past and future of tropical forests......Page 182
14 The longevity and resilience of the Amazon rainforest......Page 184
15 Amazonian ecosystems and atmospheric change since the last glacial maximum......Page 200
16 Modelling the past and future fate of the Amazonian forest......Page 208
17 Climate change and speciation in neotropical seasonally dry forest plants......Page 216
18 The prospects for tropical forests in the twenty-first-century atmosphere......Page 232
References......Page 244
B......Page 268
C......Page 269
E......Page 270
G......Page 271
L......Page 272
N......Page 273
P......Page 274
S......Page 275
V......Page 276
Z......Page 277
Plates......Page 278
