Treesearch

Tropical secondary forests provide many products, environmental services, and recreation. These forests have a set of biological features, such as their high productivity and a uniform composition of dominant tree species. To understand the composition and structure of a secondary forest in the northern karst zone, we selected the Santa Ana Environmental Center (CASA by its Spanish acronym), Bayamón, Puerto Rico, in the San Juan metropolitan area. It lies within the subtropical moist forest zone according to the Holdridge classification system (Ewel and Whitmore 1973). The objective of...

[1] Soil moisture is a key driver of biogeochemical processes in terrestrial ecosystems, strongly affecting carbon (C) and nutrient availability as well as trace gas production and consumption in soils. Models predict increasing drought frequency in tropical forest ecosystems, which could feed back on future climate change directly via effects on trace gasdynamics and indirectly through changes in nutrient availability. We used throughfall exclusion shelters to determine effects of short-term (3 month) drought on trace gas fluxes and nutrient availability in humid tropical forests in...

This data set reports measurements of trace gas fluxes of methane (CH4), nitric oxide (N2O), nitrous oxide (NO), carbon dioxide (CO2) from soils at a study site in the Tapajos National Forest (TNF), near the km 83 on the Santarem-Cuiaba Highway south of Santarem, Para, Brazil. Data for root mass and carbon content, soil nitrogen (N), nitrification, and moisture content are also provided. There are five comma-delimited data files with this data set. The research was conducted to test the effects of root mortality on the soil-atmosphere trace-gas fluxes over the course of one year. Root...

Tropical forest structural variation across heterogeneous landscapes may control above-ground carbon dynamics. We tested the hypothesis that canopy structure (leaf area and light availability) – remotely estimated from LiDAR – control variation in above-ground coarse wood production (biomass growth). Using a statistical model, these factors predicted biomass growth across tree size classes in forest near Manaus, Brazil. The same statistical model, with no parameterisation change but driven by different observed canopy structure, predicted the higher productivity of a site 500 km east. Gap...

The IXth Neotropical Ornithological Congress in Peru (Cusco, 8 – 14 November 2011). -The IXth Neotropical Congress of Ornithology (IX NOC), co-sponsored by the Neotropical Ornithological Society (NOS) and the Union of Peruvian Ornithologists (UNOP), took place in Cusco, Peru, from the 8 – 14 November 2011. The IX NOC was dedicated to the memory of Maria Koepcke for her dedication and contributions to Neotropical ornithology and especially to Peruvian ornithology (Servat et al., this volume). The meeting with more than 800 participants from 25 countries adhered to high quality standards of...

The introduced tree species Spathodea campanulata (Bignoniaceae) forms novel forests in Puerto Rico, these having emerged after the abandonment of fields in the mid-20th century and resulting in forests with a new species composition. We assessed bryophyte species richness in these novel forests and sought correlations with geological substrate, past land use, forest edge and patch area, forest structure, elevation, microhabitat diversity, tree species richness, and microclimatic conditions. Transects were established (edge and forest interior) in nine moist forest patches dominated by...

Both the biodiversity and the landscapes of the Caribbean have been greatly modified as a consequence of human activity. In this essay we provide an overview of the natural landscapes and biodiversity of the Caribbean and discuss how human activity has affected both. Our Caribbean geographic focus is on the insular Caribbean and the biodiversity focus is on the flora, forests, and built up land. Recent land cover changes from agricultural to urban cover have allowed for the proliferation of novel forests, where introduced plant species have naturalized and play important ecological roles...