Rain Forest Ecology

Abstract

Tropical rain forests host most of the world's terrestrial biodiversity, are critical to global climate, and support livelihoods of billions of people. We use a transdisciplinary lens to understanding the impact of management and land use change on resilience of tropical forest landscapes, their restoration and capacity to deliver multiple ecosystem services and support sustainable development.

Objective

The course learning objectives are organized in two main sections: Importance and complexity of Tropical rainforest and why study them 1. Explore the diversity and functioning of one of the world's most important biomes: tropical rain forests. 2. Understand how interacting ecological processes acting over multiple time and spatial scales can shape patterns of species diversity. 3. Explore how species, functional groups and environment interact to shape rain forest structure and function. Conservation, management and opportunities to restore tropical rain forest landscapes 4. Recognize and understand the complexity of threats facing rain forests and their implications to human wellbeing. 5. Apply ecological theory and ecosystem understanding to current conservation challenges. 6. Understand conservation and land management strategies especially forest landscape restoration in the tropics and evaluate the conditions for their success 7. Explore innovative solutions to shape sustainable forest landscapes in the future. A primary objective of the course is to encourage students to use basic ecological knowledge to infer conclusions and evaluate strategies that address more applied environmental challenges. In so doing students would be encouraged to draw upon the ecological knowledge gained from this course, but also from other courses in ecology, ecological genetics, ecosystem function, conservation, agriculture and land use.

Content

The course will first address the fundamental ecological processes underlying tropical rain forest form, diversity and function. Building upon this foundation, issues of more applied relevance will be introduced, including threats to rain forests and their biodiversity, and strategies for biodiversity conservation forest protection. This will gradually be developed to incorporate increasingly broader and global considerations that are highly relevant to tropical rain forests including land use in the context of increasing global food demands and the need to reduce global carbon emissions. The course will draw on ecological theory, biodiversity assessment, economic theory, remote sensing technologies, spatial modelling, environmental services, ecosystem management and land use planning, and will therefore be complementary to a variety of other courses offered at Bachelor and Masters level.

Resources