The ecology of trees in the tropical rain forest.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Octavo, laminated boards, illustrations.
A summary of contemporary understanding of the ecology of tropical rain-forest trees, with particular emphasis on comparative ecology.
Current knowledge of the ecology of tropical rain-forest trees is limited, with detailed information available for perhaps only a few hundred of the many thousand of species that occur. Yet a good understanding of the trees is essential to unravelling the workings of the forest itself. This book aims to summarise contemporary understanding of the ecology of tropical rain-forest trees. The emphasis is on comparative ecology, an approach that can help to identify possible adaptive trends and evolutionary constraints and which may also lead to a workable ecological classification for tree species, conceptually simplifying the rain-forest community and making it more amenable to analysis. Also available in paperback [stock id 31202].