Treesearch

Pterocarpus officinalis Jacq., called palo de pollo in Puerto Rico, bloodwood in Guyana and Panama, and by numerous other names throughout its extensive range, is an evergreen tree that reaches 40m in height

The proliferation of degraded tropical landscapes in need of rehabilitation and the reduction of primary forest area have forced a closer collaboration between ecologist and land manager. this collaboration has led to new paradigms of forest management (combined in the term ecosystem management), new insight into forest ecology through comparative ecological functioning of these ecosystems.

Point counts and mist nets were used to sample birds in sun and shade coffee plantations, and remnant pine forests in an agricultura! region of the Cordillera Central, Dominican Republic from Jan.-Feb. 1992 to 1994. Rarefaction analysis indicated that species richness was highest in pine and lowest in plantations. Species diversity (H') was similar in point counts in the three habitats, but an "overdominance" was evident in net samples in shade coffee where the two most cornrnon species constituted 51% of all captures in contrast to 37% in pine and 27% in sun coffee. Pine forest had more...

We determined the flocking propensity of 48 species of birds occurring in native pine forest in the Cordillera Central of the Dominican Republic, and the species composition of 180 mixed-species flocks. Flocks were unusually ubiquitous, with 46 species occurring in at least one flock, 11 species regularly present, and all insectivorous species and all migrant species participating. Most birds encountered were permanent residents, but winter residents (Nearctic migrants) were an important component of the flocks and, as a group, had the highest flocking propensity. Flocks were cohesive and...

1 The controls over above-ground primary productivity following hurricane damage were investigated in a lowland subtropical wet forest (350–500 m altitude) and a lower montane elfin forest (1050 m) in Puerto Rico. Responses of understorey and canopy vegetation to addition of a complete nutrient fertilizer (both altitudes) or hurricane debris removal (lowland only) were monitored for 47–50 months. Treatments were initiated 1–6 months after Hurricane Hugo severely damaged both forests (18 September 1989). 2 Fertilization stimulated leaf litter production in both forests, but the recovery to...

The impact of severe habitat disturbance on plants and animals is often dramatically negative, but across species and guilds there is considerable variance. The effects of hurricane damage exemplify this phenomenon. When most organisms are adversely affected, it is expected that the dynamics of their inter actions will also be altered. The consequences of a direct hit by Hurricane Hugo, a category 4 storm, on a plant-pollinator interaction was investigated by comparing pre-hurricane (1981–1985) with post-hurricane data (1989-1990). The nectarless, self-compatible Epidendrum ciliare L....

Remnant population of the critically endangered Puerto Rican Parrot (Amazona vittata) survives in the Luquillo Mountains of northeastern Puerto Rico (Snyder et al. 1987). During the last three decades, intensive research and management have reversed a precipitous population decline to one of continual population growth (Wiley 1980, Snyder et al. 1987, Lindsey et al. 1989, Lindsey 1992). Prior to Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the wild population had grown from 14 birds during the mid-1970s to 47 (Meyers 1995). The hurricane reduced the population to about 22-24 birds; however, by early 1994, the...