A press release regarding a Science paper written using data from the
Luquillo Forest Dynmaics plot. Jill made a big contribution to the writing
of the paper. I did little but offer a stupid quote for the press release.

jess

_____

From: Dybas, Cheryl
Sent: Thu 1/26/2006 2:42 PM
To: BIO DEB-PO; Firth, Penelope L.; Roskoski, Joann P.; Collins, James
Subject: Worldwide Study Reveals Nature Encourages Diversity in Tropical
Forests

National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22230
"Where Discoveries Begin"

For Immediate Release
01/26/2006

Media Contacts: Cheryl Dybas, NSF, (703) 292-7734, cdybas@nsf.gov

WORLDWIDE STUDY REVEALS NATURE ENCOURAGES DIVERSITY IN TROPICAL FORESTS
Older, rarer trees get a survival boost
Woody vines, or lianas, drape dipterocarp trees near the Pasoh forest
reserve in peninsular Malaysia
Woody vines, or lianas, drape dipterocarp trees near the Pasoh forest
reserve in peninsular Malaysia
Credit: Chris Wills, UCSD Credit and

Larger Version:
An analysis of seven tropical forests around the world has found that nature
encourages species diversity by selecting for less common trees as the trees
mature. The landmark study, which was conducted by 33 ecologists from 12
countries and published in this week's issue of the journal Science,
conclusively demonstrates that diversity matters and has ecological
importance to tropical forests.

"Ecologists have debated for decades whether there is ecological value to
species diversity," says Christopher Wills, a biologist at the University of
California, San Diego, who led the study. "We found that in forests
throughout the New and Old World tropics, older trees are more diverse than
younger ones. In other words, diversity is actually selected for as each of
the forests matures. This means diversity does indeed matter and is an
essential property of these complex ecosystems."

The study was conducted on seven undisturbed forest plots, or "tropical
forest observatories," maintained and studied by research institutions in
Borneo, India, Malaysia, Panama, Puerto Rico and Thailand, under the
coordination of the Center for Tropical Forest Science of the Smithsonian
Tropical Research Institute, based in Panama.

"Each forest in our study is a highly dynamic community," says Kyle Harms, a
biologist at Louisiana State University (LSU) and a collaborator on the
project. "We found that the diversity of each local area increased
regardless of the species that were present. This is because trees that were
locally common tended to die more often than those that were locally rare,
giving a survival advantage to rare species." The effect was even seen
within species, he adds. "If a species was common in one part of a plot and
rare in another, its death rate was higher where it was common."

The forest plots, two from the Americas and five from Asia, are themselves
diverse. They range from dense and species-rich wet rainforest to drier and
more open forest that is often swept by fires. Even so, all the forests show
the same pattern of increasing local diversity as trees age.

"The great scientific value of these tropical forest observatories is that
each of them has undergone a complete census more than once, so that the
researchers know what has happened to hundreds of thousands of trees from
one census to the next," says Stuart Davies, director of the Center for
Tropical Forest Science. "These tropical forest observatories, along with
others in our network, represent some of the most important, detailed and
long-running ecological studies in the world today."

In addition to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the institutions
that manage the tropical forest observatories included in this study are the
Indian Institute of Science, Royal Forest Department of Thailand, University
of Peradeniya of Sri Lanka, University of Puerto Rico, and the Forest
Research Institutes in Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak.

The study was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the
Center for Tropical Forest Science of the Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute.

Scientists are unsure what is responsible for the increases in diversity,
but it seems to exert its effects in all seven of the research forests.

"This study addresses a fundamental question in tropical ecology," said Jess
Zimmerman, co-author of the paper. Zimmerman is on leave from the University
of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras and is currently a program director in the
National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Environmental Biology. "In a
snapshot of time, are rare species rare because they are on the brink of
local extinction, or because they are on their way to becoming more common?
This long-term study shows that there is an advantage to being rare, and
that this advantage causes rare species to become more common."

The authors cite three possibilities, all of which, they say, are likely to
play a role. First, rare species may be at an advantage because the animals,
fungi, bacteria and viruses that prey on them are less likely to cause
damage when their hosts are rare. Second, the rare species may be at an
advantage in competition for certain physical resources, because individuals
of the same species tend to share more similar resource requirements than
individuals of different species. And third, rare species would be at an
advantage when tree species have direct, positive influences on one another,
because trees of rare species are on average surrounded by a high proportion
of trees that are different from themselves.

The scientists point out that none of these processes can operate in forests
where the individual trees are all of one species. Such forests are highly
susceptible to diseases, and individuals are in direct competition with
others like themselves.

The three diversity enhancing processes are also likely to be absent from
badly damaged forests. When forests are clear-cut, the soil is rapidly
eroded, depleted of nutrients and the "invisible world" of insects, bacteria
and fungi that help to sustain diversity largely disappears.

But the authors believe that their study suggests that tropical forests that
have been damaged slightly, by carefully managed selective logging for
example, should soon regain their former levels of diversity, provided the
damage has not been severe or long-continued.

"If you damage a forest a little bit, the forest can recover," says Wills.
"Even damaged ecosystems can be restored to their former diversity through
natural processes if they are allowed to do so." Wills says the new study
points the way towards further detailed investigations of the processes by
which forest diversity is maintained and raises new questions and lines of
research for ecologists, and forest managers, to pursue.

"Are the same processes operating in temperate forests?" he asks. "How much
damage can a forest sustain before its diversity begins to decline? Are
other complex ecosystems, like coral reefs, also selected for increased
diversity? This paper provides insights into a dynamic and evolving natural
world and shows that diversity is not just an esthetic ideal, but is also an
important property of natural ecosystems."

######

NSF-PR 06-015

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that
supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and
engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.47 billion. NSF funds reach
all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions.
Each year, NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding, and
makes about 11,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $200 million
in professional and service contracts yearly.

Receive official NSF news electronically through the e-mail delivery and
notification system, MyNSF (formerly the Custom News Service). To subscribe,
visit http://www.nsf.gov/mynsf/ and fill in the
information under "new users".

Useful NSF Web Sites:
NSF Home Page: http://www.nsf.gov
NSF News: http://www.nsf.gov/news/
For the News Media: http://www.nsf.gov/news/newsroom.jsp
Science and Engineering Statistics: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/
Awards Searches: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/

-------------------------------------------------
Long-Term Ecological Research Network Mailing List
luq@LTERnet.edu