This updated and expanded second edition of a much lauded work provides a current overview of the impacts of climate change on tropical forests. The authors also investigate past, present and future climatic influences on the ecosystems with the highest biodiversity on the planet.

Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change, Second Edition, looks at how tropical rain forest ecology is altered by climate change, rather than simply seeing how plant communities were altered. Shifting the emphasis on to ecological processes, e.g. how diversity is structured by climate and the subsequent impact on tropical forest ecology, provides the reader with a more comprehensive coverage. A major theme of the book is the interaction between humans, climate and forest ecology. The authors, all foremost experts in their fields, explore the long term occupation of tropical systems, the influence of fire and the future climatic effects of deforestation, together with anthropogenic emissions. Incorporating modelling of past and future systems paves the way for a discussion of conservation from a climatic perspective, rather than the usual plea to stop logging. This second edition provides an updated text in this rapidly evolving field. The existing chapters are revised and updated and two entirely new chapters deal with Central America and the effect of fire on wet forest systems. In the first new chapter, the paleoclimate and ecological record from Central America (Lozano, Correa, Bush) is discussed, while the other deals with the impact of fire on tropical ecosystems. It is hoped that Jonathon Overpeck, who has been centrally involved in the 2007 and 2010 IPCC reports, will provide a Foreword to the book.

Provides a current and updated overview of the impacts of climate change on tropical forests. Covers Central America and the effect of fire on wet forest systems in two new chapters. Uniquely deals with ecological effects of past and future climate change on tropical forests around the world. Includes ecophysiology in addition to simple description of observed paleocological changes Provides modeling of past and future vegetation and climate change. Integrates modern and postulated fire risk and climate change in a long-term perspective. Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext
PhD Mark B. Bush, Professor at the Biology Department of Florida Institute of Technology (FIT).

Inhalt
Chapter 1. Cretaceous and Tertiary climate change and the past distribution of megathermal rain forest. R. J. Morley.- 2. Andean Montane forests and climate change. M. B. Bush, J. A. Hanselman, and H. Hooghiemstra.- 3. Climate change in the lowlands of the Amazon Basin. M. B. Bush, W. D. Gosling and P. A. Colinvaux.- 4. NEW CHAPTER: Quaternary climate change in Central American forests. M. B. Bush, S. Lozano.- 5. The Quaternary history of far eastern rainforests. A. P. Kershaw, S. van der Kaars and J. R. Flenley.- 6. Rain Forest responses to past climatic changes in Tropical Africa. R. Bonnefille.- 7. Tropical environmental dynamics: a modelling perspective. R. Marchant and J. Lovett.- 8. Prehistoric human occupation and impacts on Neotropical forest landscapes during the Late Pleistocene and Early/Middle Holocene. D. Piperno.- 9. Ultraviolet insolation and the Tropical Rain Forest: altitudinal variations, Quaternary and recent change, extinctions and biodiversity. J. R. Flenley.- 10. Climate change and hydrological models of the wet tropics. J. Marengo.- 11. Plant species diversity in Amazonian Forests. M. R. Silman.- 12. Nutrient cycling and climate change in tropical forests. M. E. McGroddy and W. L. Silver.- 13. NEW Chapter The effect of fire on tropical forest systems.- 14. The response of South American tropical forests to contemporary atmospheric change. O. L. Phillips, S. L. Lewis, T. R. Baker, and Y. Malhi.- 15. Ecophysiological response of lowland tropical plants to Pleistocene climate. S.A. Cowling.- 16. Modeling Future effects of climate change on tropical forests. L. Hannah, R. Betts, and H.H. Shugart.- 17. Conservation, climate change, and tropical forests. L.Hannah and T. Lovejoy.