Treesearch

En este mapa mostramos las areas naturales protegidas designadas para la conservacion de los recursos naturales en Puerto Rico y regiones reguladas por ley con el potencial de mejorar la conservacion de los mismos. La designacion de areas protegidas es un proceso dinamico debido a que es el resultado de la constante evolucion de valores en los diferentes sectores de la sociedad. La informacion mostrada es una compilacion de datos geoespaciales disponibles de varias agencias federales y estatales y organizaciones no gubernamentales. El mapa principal, "Areas protegidas por administracion",...

Throughout the tropics, population movements, urban growth, and industrialization are causing conditions that result in elevated temperatures within urban areas when compared with that in surrounding rural areas, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island (UHI). One such example is the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Our objective in this study was to quantify the UHI created by the San Juan Metropolitan Area over space and time using temperature data collected by mobile- and fixed-station measurements. We also used the fixed-station measurements to examine the relationship between average...

Tree cover and species composition were surveyed in 1998, 2003, and 2010 after the elimination of grazing and fire on the lower 32 hectares of the Tinaja tract at Laguna Cartagena National Wildlife Refuge in south-western Puerto Rico. Surveys of the secondary subtropical dry forest showed that stems increased 3.9 times, trees 6.7 times, basal area 3.3 times, and biomass 4.4 times between 1998 and 2010. Notable differences occurred by site. Greater numbers of stems and trees, greater basal areas, and usually biomass were tallied on 10 plots along the southern boundary closer to residual...

Photographic key to determine age in two Thryothorus wrens from Nicaragua's Pacific slope. – We used plumage and molt characteristics to determine age in two Neotropical species of the family Troglodytidae, Rufous-and-White Wren (Thryothorus rufalbus) and Plain Wren (T. modestus). Color density, shape, and strength of the black barring in the remiges, rectrices, and greater coverts are more prominent in UCB and DCB birds than in FCJ and FCF individuals. We used wing length in combination with plumage characters and brood patch to determine the sex of Thryothorus rufalbus and caution...

Many serious ecosystem consequences of climate change will take decades or even centuries to emerge. Long-term ecological responses to global change are strongly regulated by slow processes, such as changes in species composition, carbon dynamics in soil and by long-lived plants, and accumulation of nutrient capitals. Understanding and predicting these processes require experiments on decadal time scales. But decadal experiments by themselves may not be adequate becausemany of the slowprocesses have characteristic time scales much longer than experiments can bemaintained. This article...