Forest ecology: Three trillion trees

On pluralism in ecology: seeing the forest and the trees.

In response to our paper testing whether mistletoe represents a keystone resource [1], Thomsen & Wernberg (TW) [2] integrated our experiment with previous work and introduced a novel hypothesis to explain how structural complexity influences community composition. While we share their enthusiasm for unveiling generalized determinants of diversity, we caution that their approach may overlook som...

Comparative fire ecology of tropical savanna and forest trees

1. Fire is important in the dynamics of savanna–forest boundaries, often maintaining a balance between forest advance and retreat. 2. We performed a comparative ecological study to understand how savanna and forest species differ in traits related to fire tolerance. We compared bark thickness, root and stem carbohydrates, and height of reproductive individuals within 10 congeneric pairs, each c...

Forest Ecology

Fire is a potentially powerful tool for achieving desired conditions of forest ecosystems. From an ecological perspective, the use of fire requires affirmative answers to either of the following questions: (1) Does it increase ecosystem health and sustainability? and (2) Does it preserve or restore unique species or habitats? Health and sustainability can be measured and defined in terms of: (1...

Tropical Forest Community Ecology

Species Diversity of Trees and Forest Floor Plants in Oriental beech Forest Types of Shastkalate Educational and Research Forest, Gorgan)

Trees are the most important biological elements of forest ecosystems. The variability of the tree species composition inhabiting in the Oriental beech forest, not only forms different forest types but also has a remarkable impact on the species diversity of forest floor plants, due to the existence of trees in the overstory layer. In this research, forest types of an an Oriental beech were ide...