The Domestic Benefits Tropical forests can potentially produce hydrological benefits of Tropical Forests and yield economically vafuable nontimber forest A Critical Review Emphasizing products. But the levels of these benefits are poorly Hydrological Functions understood, likely to be highly context-specific. and Kenneth M. Chomitz may often be smaller than Kanta Kumari popularly supposed. This...

Norton and Didham (1) argue that differences in plant abundance between tropical and temperate forests may limit the general conclusion that herbivore diversity scales directly with host plant diversity. They point out that our study (2) did not include locally rare tree species. Our temperate/tropical comparison was standardized for sample size and plant phylogeny but not for plant abundance a...

The expansion of industrial agriculture is a primary driver of tropical forest loss (Kartodihardjo and Supriono, 2000; Abdullah and Nakagoshi, 2008; Sodhi et al., 2010). Tropical forests harbor high levels of terrestrial biodiversity and are the principal habitat for apes in Africa and Asia (Junker et al., 2012). Numerous agro-industrial crops are found in ape ranges, including oil palm, peanut...

Tropical forests contribute to approximately 40% of the total carbon found in terrestrial biomass. In this context, forest/non-forest classification and estimation of forest above ground biomass over tropical regions are very important and relevant in understanding the contribution of tropical forests in global biogeochemical cycles, especially in terms of carbon pools and fluxes. Information o...

Globally, tropical deforestation releases 20 to 30% of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Conserving forests could reduce emissions, but the cost-effectiveness of this mechanism for mitigation depends on the associated opportunity costs. We estimated these costs from local, national, and global perspectives using a case study from Madagascar. Conservation generated significant benefits over loggin...

Drought stress in tropical dry forests is thought to result in greater asexual regeneration via vegetative sprouting (e.g., basal, root, and branch layering) than occurs in moister tropical forests. We tested this hypothesis by examining the prevalence of tree sprouting and seeding in tropical forests located along a rainfall gradient on the island of Hawai’i. Additionally, we examined the pote...

Tropical forests store vast quantities of carbon, account for one-third of the carbon fixed by photosynthesis, and are a major sink in the global carbon cycle. Recent evidence suggests that competition between lianas (woody vines) and trees may reduce forest-wide carbon uptake; however, estimates of the impact of lianas on carbon dynamics of tropical forests are crucially lacking. Here we used ...

Atmospheric N deposition is predicted to increase four times over its current status in tropical forests by 2030. Our ability to understand the effects of N enrichment on C and N cycles is being challenged by the large heterogeneity of the tropical forest biome. The specific response will depend on the forest's nutrient status; however, few studies of N addition appear to incorporate the nutrie...

Although increasing efforts are being made to restore tropical forests, little information is available regarding the time scales required for carbon and plant biodiversity to recover to the values associated with undisturbed forests. To address this knowledge gap, we carried out a meta-analysis comparing data from more than 600 secondary tropical forest sites with nearby undisturbed reference ...

Deposition of reactive nitrogen (N) from human activities has large effects on temperate forests where low natural N availability limits productivity but is not known to affect tropical forests where natural N availability is often much greater. Leaf N and the ratio of N isotopes (δ(15)N) increased substantially in a moist forest in Panama between ~1968 and 2007, as did tree-ring δ(15)N in a dr...