/ The demand for water to support irrigated agriculture has led to the demise of wetlands and their associated wildlife for decades. This thirst for water is so pervasive that many wetlands considered to be hemispheric reserves for waterbirds have been heavily affected; for example, the California and Nevada wetlands in North America, the Macquarie Marshes in Australia, and the Aral Sea in cent...

Tropical ecosystems sustain much of the earth’s biodiversity, provide countless natural products and services—both locally and globally—and play critical roles in the regulation of the climate and the carbon and hydrological cycles. The expansion of agriculture into tropical forest ecosystems will therefore have enormous impacts on factors such as human and animal health (Karesh et al., 2012), ...

Tropical ecosystems sustain much of the earth’s biodiversity, provide countless natural products and services—both locally and globally—and play critical roles in the regulation of the climate and the carbon and hydrological cycles. The expansion of agriculture into tropical forest ecosystems will therefore have enormous impacts on factors such as human and animal health (Karesh et al., 2012), ...

Tropical ecosystems sustain much of the earth’s biodiversity, provide countless natural products and services—both locally and globally—and play critical roles in the regulation of the climate and the carbon and hydrological cycles. The expansion of agriculture into tropical forest ecosystems will therefore have enormous impacts on factors such as human and animal health (Karesh et al., 2012), ...

Tropical ecosystems sustain much of the earth’s biodiversity, provide countless natural products and services—both locally and globally—and play critical roles in the regulation of the climate and the carbon and hydrological cycles. The expansion of agriculture into tropical forest ecosystems will therefore have enormous impacts on factors such as human and animal health (Karesh et al., 2012), ...

Endangered forest-grassland mosaics interspersed with expanding agriculture and silviculture occur across many parts of the world, including the southern Brazilian highlands. This natural mosaic ecosystem is thought to reflect alternative stable states driven by threshold responses of recruitment to fire and moisture regimes. The role of adaptive human behavior in such systems remains understud...

.............................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................... iv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .....................................

Tropical ecosystems sustain much of the earth’s biodiversity, provide countless natural products and services—both locally and globally—and play critical roles in the regulation of the climate and the carbon and hydrological cycles. The expansion of agriculture into tropical forest ecosystems will therefore have enormous impacts on factors such as human and animal health (Karesh et al., 2012), ...

The carbon (C) cycle is the basis for greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Globally, agriculture is responsible for about 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions. However, this percentage does not take into account the large role that agriculture plays in the opposing processes of photosynthesis and respiration (Figure 1), as well as contributions to soil organic C sequestration via animal ...