Asian tropical forests assimilating carbon under dry conditions: water stress or light benefits?

Abiotic Factors Influencing Tropical Dry Forests Regeneration

Tropical dry forests represent nearly half the tropical forests in the world and are the ecosystems registering the greatest deterioration from the anthropogenic exploitation of the land. This paper presents a review on the dynamics of tropical dry forests regeneration and the main abiotic factors influencing this regeneration, such as seasonal nature, soil fertility and humidity, and natural a...

Effectiveness of Dry Eye Therapy Under Conditions of Environmental Stress

PURPOSE Dry eye is often characterized by increased tear evaporation due to poor tear film quality, especially of the lipid component of the tear film. Using an environmental chamber to induce environmental stress, this study compared the effect of three lubricant eye drops on various aspects of tear physiology in a crossover design (evaporation was the principal outcome measure). METHODS Thr...

Carbon Cycling in Teak Plantations in Comparison with Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests in Thailand

Defaunation affects carbon storage in tropical forests

Carbon storage is widely acknowledged as one of the most valuable forest ecosystem services. Deforestation, logging, fragmentation, fire, and climate change have significant effects on tropical carbon stocks; however, an elusive and yet undetected decrease in carbon storage may be due to defaunation of large seed dispersers. Many large tropical trees with sizeable contributions to carbon stock ...

Tropical forests and atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Tropical forests play a major role in determining the current atmospheric concentration of CO2, as both sources of CO2 following deforestation and sinks of CO2 probably resulting from CO2 stimulation of forest photosynthesis. Recently, researchers have tried to quantify this role. The results suggest that both the carbon sources and sinks in tropical forests are significantly greater than previ...