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Mesoscale Exploration and Conservation of Tropical Canopies in a Changing Climate

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Treetops at Risk

Abstract

Tropical forests harbor the majority of species found on land, yet we still know very little about the canopies that create habitat required for a vast array of flora and fauna. Tropical canopies remain a biological frontier, calling us to explore them in hopes of better understanding their composition, structure and function, and how they came to be. Yet we undertake this challenge at a time of very rapid change for tropical canopies, in terms of both their geographic extent and their condition. The global tropical forest landscape is changing at such a rate and with such complexity; the urgency of mapping and reporting on them has reached an all-time high.

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Acknowledgments 

I thank the many colleagues who have influenced my thinking on the issues presented here, and I give a special thanks to Meg Lowman and Roberta Martin for their thoughtful advice and review. The Carnegie Airborne Observatory is made possible by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Avatar Alliance Foundation, Grantham, Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, Avatar Alliance Foundation, Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, W. M. Keck Foundation, Mary Anne Nyburg Baker and G. Leonard Baker Jr., and William R. Hearst III.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Gregory P. Asner

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  1. Gregory P. Asner
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Correspondence to Gregory P. Asner .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Nature Research Center, North Carolina State University, 11 W. Jones Street, Raleigh, 27601, North Carolina, USA

    Margaret Lowman

  2. the Environment, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and, Royal Enclave, Srirampura, Jakkur Post, Bangalore, 560 064, India

    Soubadra Devy

  3. the Environment, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and, Royal Enclave, Srirampura, Jakkur Post, Bangalore, 560 064, India

    T. Ganesh

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Asner, G.P. (2013). Mesoscale Exploration and Conservation of Tropical Canopies in a Changing Climate. In: Lowman, M., Devy, S., Ganesh, T. (eds) Treetops at Risk. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7161-5_18

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