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OOS-50:
Dynamics of disturbed and undisturbed tropical rain forests
Thursday,
August 11, 1:30 PM - 5 PM, Meeting Rooms 511b and 511e, Level 5, Palais
des congrès de Montréal
Organizers:
Andreas Huth (Andreas.Huth@UFZ.de), Juergen Groeneveld
Description:
Tropical rain forests cover roughly 12% of the earth’s land
surface, but are habitat for more than a half of the species of the world.
Logging of timber, land clearing, slash-and-burn cultivation, high population
pressure, and ongoing fragmentation are threatening tropical rain forests.
Reducing those impacts, enlarging protected reserves, and changing to a
sustainable management are needed to stop the loss and depletion of large areas
of tropical rain forest. For all these activities, a better understanding of the
dynamics of disturbed and undisturbed tropical rain forests is crucial. In the
last year several important studies have given principal new insights in the
dynamical structure of tropical rain forests. Gap building, recruitment
limitation, fragmentation, climate change, El Niño events, and other
disturbances have important impacts on forest dynamics. In this session,
researchers working on these questions will present their results. Broadening
the understanding of the forest dynamics of these forests will be important for
protecting and better managing these forests in the future.
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