Ecology

Photo Credit

Gary Potts

Changes in land use and deforestation are major threats to tropical forests at a global scale. At both rural and urban settings, researchers at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry develop tools and design experiments that shed light on how species interactions determine ecological dynamics, how environmental factors control those interactions and how environments are influenced by changes in community composition and structure over space and time. This research also evaluates how human actions affect these dynamics which is key for designing strategies to counteract further losses in tropical forest cover worldwide.