Overview
- Editors:
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Ariel E. Lugo
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International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service, Río Piedras, USA
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Carol Lowe
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Southern Forest Experiment Station, USDA Forest Service, New Orleans, USA
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About this book
Forestry professors used to remind students that, whereas physicians bury their mistakes, foresters die before theirs are noticed. But good institutions live longer than the scientists who contribute to building them, and the half-century of work of the USDA Forest Service's Institute of Tropical Forestry (ITF) is in plain view: an unprecedented corpus of accomplishments that would instill pride in any organization. There is scarcely anyone interested in current issues of tropical forestry who would not benefit from a refresher course in ITF's findings: its early collaboration with farmers to establish plantations, its successes in what we now call social forestry, its continuous improvement of nursery practices, its screening trials of native species, its development of wood-processing technologies appropriate for developing countries, its thorough analysis of tropical forest function, and its holistic approach toward conservation of endangered species. Fortunately, ITF has a long history of information exchange through teaching; like many others, I got my own start in tropical forest ecology fromjust such a course in Puerto Rico. And long before politicians recognized the global importance of tropical forestry, the ITF staff served actively as ambassadors of the discipline, visiting tropical coun tries everywhere to learn and, when invited to do so, to help solve local problems. It is a general principle of biogeography that species' turnover rates on islands are higher than those on continents. Inevitably, the same is true of scientists assigned to work on islands.
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Table of contents (17 chapters)
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The Problem and Background
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Long-Term Ecological Research in Puerto Rico
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- Ariel E. Lugo, F. N. Scatena
Pages 59-108
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- Ariel E. Lugo, Albert Bokkestijn, F. N. Scatena
Pages 142-177
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- Peter G. Murphy, Ariel E. Lugo, Alice J. Murphy, Daniel C. Nepstad
Pages 178-209
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- Charlotte M. Taylor, Susan Silander, Robert B. Waide, William J. Pfeiffer
Pages 258-285
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Research Areas That Require Increased Focus in the Tropics
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Front Matter
Pages 287-287
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Direction for Future Research in Tropical Forests
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Front Matter
Pages 395-395
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Editors and Affiliations
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International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service, Río Piedras, USA
Ariel E. Lugo
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Southern Forest Experiment Station, USDA Forest Service, New Orleans, USA
Carol Lowe