Biotic Interactions in the Tropics: Their Role in the Maintenance of Species Diversity

by Edited by David Burslem , Michelle Pinard , Sue Hartley

• ISBN13: 9780521609852
• ISBN10: 0521609852
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Tropical ecosystems house a significant proportion of global biodiversity. To understand how these ecosystems function we need to appreciate not only what plants, animals and microbes they contain, but also how they interact with each other. This volume synthesises the current state of knowledge in this area, with chapters providing reviews or case studies drawn from research conducted in both Old and New World tropics and including biotic interactions among taxa at all trophic levels. In most chapters plants (typically trees) are the starting point, but, taken together, the chapters consider interactions of plants with other plants, with micro-organisms and with animals, and the inter-relationships of human-induced disturbance with interactions among species. An underlying theme of the volume is the attempt to understand the maintenance of high diversity in tropical regions, which remains one of the most significant unexplained observations in ecological studies.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	viii
Preface	xi
PART I Plant-plant interactions
1 Plant-plant interactions in tropical forests	3	(32)
John J. Ewel and Ankila J. Hiremath
2 Resource capture and use by tropical forest tree seedlings and their consequences for competition	35	(30)
Lourens Poorter
3 Role of life-history trade-offs in the equalization and differentiation of tropical tree species	65	(24)
James W. Dalling and David F.R.P. Burslem
4 Neighbourhood effects on sapling growth and survival in a neotropical forest and the ecological-equivalence hypothesis	89	(18)
Maria Uriarte, Stephen P. Hubbell, Robert John, Richard Condit and Charles D. Canham
5 Ecological drift in niche-structured communities: neutral pattern does not imply neutral process	107	(34)
Drew W. PurVes and Stephen W. Pacala
PART II Plant-microbe interactions
6 Dimensions of plant disease in tropical forests	141	(24)
Gregory S. Gilbert
7 Mycorrhizas and ecosystem processes in tropical rain forest: implications for diversity	165	(39)
Ian J. Alexander and S.S. Lee
8 An overview of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal composition, distribution and host effects from a tropical moist forest	204	(22)
Edward Allen Herre, Damond Kyllo, Scott Mangan, Rebecca Husband, Luis C. Mejia and Ahn-Heum Eom
9 Tropical plants as chimera: some implications of foliar endophytic fungi for the study of host-plant defence, physiology and genetics	226
Edward Allen Herre, Sunshine A. Van Bael, Zuleyka Maynard, Nancy Robbins, Joseph Bischoff Anne E. Arnold, Enith Rojas, Luis C. Mejia, Roberto A. Cordero, Catherine Woodward and Damond A. Kyllo
PART III Plant-animal interactions
10 Implications of plant spatial distribution for pollination and seed production	241	(26)
Jaboury Ghazoul
11 Seed dispersal of woody plants in tropical forests: concepts, examples and future directions	267	(43)
Helene C. Muller-Landau and Britta Denise Hardesty
12 The role of trophic interactions in community initiation, maintenance and degradation	310	(18)
José Manuel Vieira Fragoso
13 Impacts of herbivores on tropical plant diversity	328	(19)
Robert J. Marquis
14 Have the impacts of insect herbivores on the growth of tropical tree seedlings been underestimated?	347	(19)
Fergus P. Massey, Malcolm C. Press and Sue E. Hartley
15 Multi-trophic interactions and biodiversity: beetles, ants, caterpillars and plants	366	(20)
Deborah K. Letourneau and Lee A. Dyer
16 The trophic structure of tropical ant-plant-herbivore interactions: community consequences and coevolutionary dynamics	386	(28)
Doyle McKey, Laurence Gaume, Carine Brouat, Bruno di Giusto, Laurence Pascal, Gabriel Debout, Ambroise Dalecky and Martin Heil
17 Multitrophic interactions in a neotropical savanna: ant-hemipteran systems, associated insect herbivores and a host plant	414	(27)
Paulo S. Oliveira and Kleber Del-Claro
PART IV Biotic interactions in human-dominated landscapes
18 The alteration of biotic interactions in fragmented tropical forests	441	(18)
William F. Laurance
19 Effects of natural enemies on tropical woody-plant invasions	459	(25)
Saara J. DeWalt
20 New mix of alien and native species coexists in Puerto Rico's landscapes	484	(26)
Ariel E. Lugo and Thomas J. Brandeis
21 The dynamics of a tropical dry forest in India: climate, fire, elephants and the evolution of life-history strategies	510	(20)
R. Sukumar, H.S. Suresh, H.S. Dattaraja, S. Srinidhi and C. Nath
22 Changes in plant communities associated with timber management in natural forests in the moist tropics	530	(23)
Michelle A. Pinard
Index	553