Tropical Forest Ecosystems and Society

Abstract

Tropical rain forests, the world's most biodiverse habits, suffer from habitat loss, fragmentation, and climate change. Their continued degradation will impact future climate, global biodiversity, and livelihoods of billions of people. We will explore the structure, dynamics, and ecological functions of rain forests to provide the scientific foundation for their conservation and restoration.

Objective

Tropical rain forests, the world's most biodiverse habits, suffer from habitat loss, fragmentation, and climate change. Their continued degradation will impact future climate, global biodiversity, and livelihoods of billions of people. We will explore the structure, dynamics, and ecological functions of rain forests to provide the scientific foundation for their conservation and restoration. The course learning objectives include: 1. Defining rain forests – exploring the variety of rain forest types across the world. 2. Understand the species and habitat diversity of tropical rain forests across the globe. 3. Evaluate different explanations for the immense species richness of tropical rainforests. 4. Explore how species, functional groups, and the abiotic environment interact to determine rain forest structure and function. 5. Recognize and understand the complexity of threats facing rain forests, and their implications for species diversity and ecosystem services. 6. Explore and evaluate conservation and landscape management strategies in tropical forest biomes. 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.

Content

The course will first address the fundamental ecological processes underlying tropical rain forest form, diversity and function. The variety of different rain forests will be explored, including an assessment of how biotic and abiotic factors determine rain forest form and diversity. The species richness and patterns of species distribution in rain forests will be explored using palaeontological, biogeographical, evolutionary, and ecological principles. Ecological theories for the immense species richness of tropical forests will be compared and evaluated. 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 and forest restoration. This will gradually be developed to incorporate increasingly broader and global considerations that are highly relevant to tropical rain forests including their importance for global carbon balance and as the source of many forest products and ecosystem services.

Resources