About the Book
We live in an increasingly fragmented world, with islands of natural habitat cast adrift in a sea of cleared, burned, logged, polluted, and otherwise altered lands. Nowhere are fragmentation and its devastating effects more evident than in the tropical forests. By the year 2000, more than half of these forests will have been cut, causing increased soil erosion, watershed destabilization, climate degradation, and extinction of as many as 600,000 species.
Tropical Forest Remnants provides the best information available to help us
understand, manage, and conserve the remaining fragments. Covering geographic areas from Southeast Asia and Australia to Madagascar and the New World, this volume summarizes what is known about the ecology, management, restoration, socioeconomics, and conservation of fragmented forests. Thirty-three papers present results of recent research as
well as updates from decades-long projects in progress. Two final chapters synthesize the state of research on tropical forest fragmentation and identify key priorities for future work.
Table of Contents:
Foreword Thomas E. Lovejoy Preface: A Crisis in the Making William F. Laurence, Richard O. Bierregaard, Jr. Sect. I: The Scale and Economics of Tropical Deforestation 1: Tropical Forest Disturbance, Disappearance, and Species Loss T. C. Whitmore 2: The Role of Economic Factors in Tropical Deforestation James R. Kahn, Judith A. McDonald. Sect. II: Physical Processes and Edge Effects 3: Edge-Related Changes in Environment and Plant Responses Due to Forest Fragmentation in Central Amazonia Valerie Kapos, Elisa Wandelli, Jose Luis Camargo et al. 4: Edge and Aspect Effects on the Microclimate of a Small Tropical Forest Remnant on the Atherton Tableland, Northeastern Australia Stephen M. Turton, Heidi Jo Freiburger. 5: The Influence of Edge Effects and Forest Fragmentation of Leaf Litter Invertebrates in Central Amazonia Raphael K. Didham 6: Hyper-Disturbed Parks: Edge Effects and the Ecology of Isolated Rainforest Reserved in Tropical Australia William F. Laurance Sect. III: Tropical Forest Faunas 7: Disturbance, Fragmentation, and the Dynamics of Diversity in Amazonian Forest Butterflies Keith S. Brown, Jr., Roger W. Hutchings. 8: Phenetic Variation in Insular Populations of a Rainforest Centipede John F. Weishampel, Herman H. Shugart, Walter E. Westman. 9: Fragmentation Effects on a Central Amazonian Frog Community: A Ten-Year Study Mandy D. Tocher, Claude Gascon, Barbara L. Zimmerman. 10: Understory Birds and Dynamic Habitat Mosaics in Amazonian Rainforests Richard O. Bierregaard, Jr., Philip C. Stouffer. 11: Avian Extinction and Persistance Mechanisms in Lowland Panama Kathryn E. Sieving, James R. Karr. 12: Frugivorous Birds in Fragmented Neotropical Montane Forests: Landscape Pattern and Body Mass Distribution Carla Restrep, Luis Miguel Renjifo, Paul Marples. 13: Structure and Conservation of Forest Avifauna in Isolated Rainforest Remnants in Tropical Australia Neil H. Warburton 14: Biomass and Diversity of Small Mammals in Amazonian Forest Fragments Jay R. Malcolm 15: Rapid Decline of Small Mammal Diversity in Monsoon Evergreen Forest Fragments in Thailand Antony J. Lynam 16: Internal Fragmentation: The Effects of Roads, Highways, and Powerline Clearings on Movements and Mortality of Rainforest Vertebrates Miriam Goosem 17: Transitory States in Relaxing Ecosystems of Land Bridge Islands John Terborgh, Lawrence Lopez, Jose Tello et al. Sect. IV: Plants and Plant - Animal Interactions 18: Tropical Four Disruption and Stochastic Biodiversity Losses Mark Andersen, Alan Thornhill, Harold Koopowitz. 19: Regeneration of Large-Seeded Trees in Australian Rainforest Fragments: A Study of Higher-Order Interactions Graham N. Harrington, Anthony K. Irvine, Francis H. J. Crome et al. 20: Dispersal and the Dynamics of Genetic Structure in Fragmented Tropical Tree Populations John D. Nason, Preston R. Aldrich, J. L. Hamrick. 21: Plant Dispersal in Fragmented Landscapes: A Field Study of Woody Colonization in Rainforest Remnants of the Mascarene Archipelago Christophe Thebaud, Dominique Strasberg. 22: Long-Term Survival in Tropical Forest Remnants in Singapore and Hong Kong Richard T. Corlett, I. M. Turner. Sect. V: Restoration and Management of Fragmented Landscapes 23: Dynamics and Restoration of Forest Fragments in the Brazilian Atlantic Moist Forest Virgilio M. Viana, Andre A. J. Tabanez, Joao Luis F. Batista. 24: Rejoining Habitat Remnants: Restoring Degraded Rainforest Lands David Lamb, John Parrotta, Rod Keenan et al. 25: Measuring Landscape Changes in Remnant Tropical Dry Forests Elizabeth A. Kramer 26: Quantifying Habitat Fragmentation Due to Land Use Change in Amazonia Virginia H. Dale, Scott M. Pearson. Sect. VI: Site Selection and Design of Tropical Nature Reserves 27: Deforestation, Fragmentation, and Reserve Design in Western Madagascar Andrew P. Smith 28: Molecular Perspectives on Historical Fragmentation of Australian Tropical and Subtropical Rainforests: Implications for Conservation Craig Moritz, Leo Joseph, Michael Cunningham et al. 29: Diversity, Differentiation, and the Historical Biogeography on Nonvolant Small Mammals of the Neotropical Forests James L. Patton, Maria Nazareth F. da Silva, Marcia C. Lara et al. 30: Species Richness and Endemism in South American Birds: Implications for the Design of Networks of Nature Reserves Jon Fjedlsa, Carsten Rahbek. Sect. VII: Summary and New Perspectives 31: Researching Tropical Forest Fragmentation: Shall We Keep On Doing What We're Doing? Francis H. J. Crome 32: Tropical Forest Fragmentation: Synthesis of a Diverse and Dynamic Discipline William F. Laurance, Richard O. Bierregaard, Jr., Claude Gascon et al. 33: Key Priorities for the Study of Fragmented Tropical Ecosystems Richard O. Bierregaard, Jr., William F. Laurance, Jack W. Sites, Jr. et al. Contributors References Name Index Taxa Index Subject Index
About the Author :
William F. Laurance is staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and president of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation. He is coeditor of Tropical Forest Remnants and the author of Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
