Tropical Rain Forest Ecology, Diversity, and Conservation

by Jaboury Ghazoul, Douglas Sheil

Rain forests represent the world's richest repository of terrestrial biodiversity, and play a major role in regulating the global climate. They support the livelihoods of a substantial proportion of the world's population and are the source of many internationally traded commodities. They remain (despite decades of conservation attention) increasingly vulnerable to degradation and clearance, with profound though often uncertain future costs to global society. Understanding the ecology of these diverse biomes, and peoples' dependencies on them, is fundamental to their future management and conservation.

Tropical Rain Forest Ecology, Diversity, and Conservation introduces and explores what rain forests are, how they arose, what they contain, how they function, and how humans use and impact them. The book starts by introducing the variety of rain forest plants, fungi, microorganisms, and animals, emphasising the spectacular diversity that is the motivation for their conservation. The central chapters describe the origins of rain forest communities, the variety of rain forest formations, and their ecology and dynamics. The challenge of explaining the species richness of rain forest communities lies at the heart of ecological theory, and forms a common theme throughout. The book's final section considers historical and current interactions of humans and rain forests. It explores biodiversity conservation as well as livelihood security for the many communities that are dependent on rain forests - inextricable issues that represent urgent priorities for scientists, conservationists, and policy makers.

Genres: Ecology, Plants, Environment

496 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2010

Reviews

[Wendelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book on a beautiful topic! This is an encyclopedic textbook covering every aspect of the tropical rainforest: the plant life, the origins, the vertebrates and invertebrates, conservation. The cover itself-the artwork design and color palette- is a bewitching delight. I bought this as a gift for myself and it makes me way too happy. My only complaint is the author has the practice of putting important terms in boldface, but declining to define them anywhere, whether in the paragraphs or in boxes of text. Keep Google on to find out what lianas or hemi-epiphytes are, as this book will not tell you.

[Zoe (Zthecapybara) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was part of my required reading for my modules this coming year of my degree. I found it a good general overview and I hope my module will be just as engaging. My book has an amazing glossary at the back which helps when there is new terminology within the text.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One can seldom boast of having read through a text book, but for this one I almost nearly did! Yes I skimmed here and there and skipped some sections but I still went through it from cover to cover. This is one of very few up to date and recent (2010 published) reference books for the topic, though there are many older ones that do a similar job. The authors are obviously more botanists than zoologists given the emphasis on plants, though to be fair the majority of biomass in such a biome is made up of the plant kingdom! Animals are covered too briefly for my liking, as most books on the subject are unfortunately. I found the section on paleoclimates and evolution of the major tropical forest areas very helpful, as this explains much of the differences in flora and faunal make up of the Americas, Africa and Asia. The ending did a good job covering conservation issues as well, including brief explanations of recent innovations in conservation financing such as REDD and PES.

All in an authoritative reference for those in the field, yet still accessible enough for the layman.

[Anneli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scientific and accessible at the same time. With some cool observations, like about leafcutter ants who made the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to horticulture long before humans.