Understanding the relationships between Coffea arabica L. and the native tree community of secondary forests regrowing after the abandonment of coffee plantations is important because, as a non-native species in the Neotropics, coffee can outcompete native species, reducing diversity and forests ecosystem services. We aimed to answer three questions: 1) Does coffee regeneration in secondary for...

Ata-Kuh forest, a preserved area within Hyrcanian relict forests, with an area of 700 ha is located in north of Iran. Based on floristic studies from 2011 through 2012, 194 vascular plant species were identified belonging to 143 genera and 66 families. Among our samples, 24 taxa were endemic to Hyrcanian area. The largest families in the area were Rosaceae (10.3 %), Poaceae (9.7 %), Asteraceae ...

Ants frequently interact with fleshy fruits on the ground of tropical forests. This interaction is regarded as mutualistic because seeds benefit from enhanced germination and dispersal to nutrient-rich microsites, whereas ants benefit from consuming the nutritious pulp/aril. Considering that the process of deforestation affects many attributes of the ecosystem such as species abundance and comp...

European forests host a diversity of tree species that are increasingly threatened by fungal pathogens, which may have cascading consequences for forest ecosystems and their functioning. Previous experimental studies suggest that foliar and root pathogen abundance and disease severity decrease with increasing tree species diversity, but evidences from natural forests are rare. Here, we tested w...

Large-seeded, animal-dispersed (LSAD) trees include some of the most valuable and threatened species in tropics, but they are chronically underrepresented regenerating forests. Toucans disperse many LSAD species, so attracting toucans to forests should help re-establish more diverse tree communities. We ask: (1) What constitutes suitable toucan habitat premontane southern Costa Rica? (2) How mu...

Despite growing evidence for an effect of species composition on carbon (C) storage and sequestration, few projects have examined the implications of such a relationship for forestry and agriculture-based climate change mitigation activities. We worked with a community in Eastern Panama to determine the average aboveand below-ground C stocks of three land-use types in their territory: managed f...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Single stressors such as scarcity of water and extreme temperatures dominate the struggle for life in severely dry desert ecosystems or cold polar regions and at high elevations. In contrast, stress in the tropics typically arises from a dynamic network of interacting stressors, such as availability of water, CO(2), light and nutrients, temperature and salinity. This require...

A quantitative ecological study was conducted in evergreen forests of Kolli hills, Tamil Nadu. A 10 ha forest dynamics plot was laid in intact evergreen forests. The 10 ha study plot divided in to 250 25m×25m workable elementary plots. All trees ≥10cm diameter at breast height were measured at 137 cm from above the ground, tagged with consecutively numbered aluminium tags. All recorded individu...