Tropical Rainforest Ecosystems

Abstract

Rainforests are widely known to be the most biodiverse (in species per square ha) of terrestrial ecosystem types on Earth. Home to an estimated half of the Earth's plant and animal species, rainforests cover approximately 7% of total land area (Whitmore 1998). Yet many rainforests worldwide are still in descriptive stages and have not yet been fully catalogued taxonomically or explored. In fact, hundreds of new floral and faunal species are identified annually. Generations of ecologists and biologists have attempted to unravel what has led to such high species richness and what factors drive their distribution among the forest strata. But to date, comparatively little is known about the complex interrelationships of the species that comprise tropical rainforest ecosystems, what gave rise to such immense biodiversity, and how these ecosystems recover from and respond to the dynamics of change across numerous periodic and spatial scales. This entry describes the range of physical attributes that comprise the classification of a forest ecosystem as a tropical rainforest. In addition to a detailed description, this entry will also give an overview of the status of tropical rainforests as among the world's most threatened ecosystem types, relate direct anthropogenic threats (e.g., logging, pasture conversion) to indirect anthropogenic threat (e.g., climate change), and finally give an overview of some of the tools utilized and concepts investigated by the scientific and conservation communities alike toward understanding how to address some of the most pressing conservation issues of our time with respect to tropical rainforests. These include: how to accurately assess and characterize the immense biodiversity found in tropical rainforests; the development of the UN‐REDD, REDD+, and similar economically based incentive programs as long‐term conservation measures; and how remote sensing and ecological modeling are used to understand the past, present, and future responses to change in tropical rainforest ecosystems.