Neotropical Gradients and Their Analysis

The importance of the Neotropics to the world's climate, biogeochemical cycling and biodiversity cannot be questioned. This book suggests that gradients are key to understanding both these issues and Neotropical ecosystem structure, function and dynamics in general. Those gradients are either spatial, temporal or spatio-temporal, where many temporal and spatio-temporal gradients are initiated by disturbances (e.g., tree-fall, landslide, cultivation). And in particular for the Neotropics, three large spatial gradients - latitude, longitude, altitude (elevation) - are of critical importance. The editor has over 30 years of experience investigating Neotropical gradients in Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Peru and Ecuador, and has published 5 previous books on different aspects of the Neotropics. Once again he has assembled top-shelf Neotropical scientists and researchers, here to focus on gradients: their nature, interactions and how they structure ecosystems.

Autorentext

Dr. Myster received his PhD from Rutgers University working with STA Pickett. His first full-time position was at the University of Puerto Rico where he worked in oldfields, pastures and landslides, and was a Co-PI on two of their LTER grants done in cooperation with the US Forest Service in Puerto Rico. While in Puerto Rico, he also began to work in Ecuador and Peru. That research continued when he got his second full-time position in Oklahoma and also to the present time. He has published 140+ articles in scientific journals and six books on his research in the Neotropics. In the future he will be in Ecuador expand his research to include forests between Cloud forest and Amazon terra-firme forest, and in Peru focus on black-water flooded igapo forest. He puts all of his book royalties back into his research.