Forests and Global Change

Forests hold a significant proportion of global biodiversity and terrestrial carbon stocks and are at the forefront of human-induced global change. The dynamics and distribution of forest vegetation determines the habitat for other organisms, and regulates the delivery of ecosystem services, including carbon storage. Presenting recent research across temperate and tropical ecosystems, this volume synthesises the numerous ways that forests are responding to global change and includes perspectives on: the role of forests in the global carbon and energy budgets; historical patterns of forest change and diversification; contemporary mechanisms of community assembly and implications of underlying drivers of global change; and the ways in which forests supply ecosystem services that support human lives. The chapters represent case studies drawn from the authors' expertise, highlighting exciting new research and providing information that will be valuable to academics, students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in this field.

Preface; 1. Forests and global change: an overview William D. Simonson, David A. Coomes and David F. R. P. Burslem; Part I. Forest Dynamics and Global Change: 2. Forests and the climate system John Grace; 3. Global change and Mediterranean forests: current impacts and potential responses Fernando Valladares, Raquel Benavides, Sonia G. Rabasa, Juli G. Pausas, Susana Paula, William D. Simonson and Mario Díaz; 4. Recent changes in tropical forest biomass and dynamics Oliver L. Phillips and Simon L. Lewis; 5. Disequilibrium and transient dynamics: disentangling responses to climate change versus broader anthropogenic impacts on temperate forests of eastern North America Charles D. Canham; Part II. Species Traits and Responses to Changing Resource Availability: 6. Floristic shifts versus critical transitions in Amazonian forest systems Jérôme Chave; 7. Traits, states and rates: understanding coexistence in forests Drew W. Purves and Mark C. Vanderwel; 8. The functional role of biodiversity in the context of global change Michael Scherer-Lorenzen; 9. Exploring evolutionarily meaningful vegetation definitions in the tropics: a community phylogenetic approach Ary T. Oliveira-Filho, R. Toby Pennington, Jay Rotella and Matt Lavin; 10. Drought as a driver of tropical tree species regeneration dynamics and distribution patterns Liza S. Comita and Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht; 11. Tree performance across gradients of soil resource availability Richard K. Kobe, Thomas W. Baribault and Ellen K. Holste; Part III. Detecting and Modelling Global Change: 12. A chemical-evolutionary basis for remote sensing of tropical forest diversity Gregory P. Asner; 13. Forests in a greenhouse atmosphere: predicting the unpredictable? Harald Bugmann; 14. Detecting and projecting changes in forest biomass from plot data Helene C. Muller-Landau, Matteo Detto, Ryan A. Chisholm, Stephen P. Hubbell and Richard Condit; 15. Analysis of anthropogenic impacts on forest diversity as a contribution to empirical theory Adrian C. Newton and Christian Echeverría; Index.

David A. Coomes is a forest ecologist and conservation biologist working with the forest ecology and conservation group at the University of Cambridge. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecology and Biological Reviews and has authored more than 90 papers, including many from his group's work in New Zealand.
David F. R. P. Burslem is a tropical forest ecologist at the University of Aberdeen. He has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecology, and is a member of the editorial boards of Plant Ecology and Diversity and the Ecological Reviews series. He was an editor of the Ecological Reviews volume Biotic Interactions in the Tropics (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and has authored more than 80 papers on the ecology and conservation of tropical forests.
William D. Simonson is a forest ecologist specialising in Mediterranean systems. He has extensive practical experience, working in the UK and overseas, for governmental as well as non-governmental conservation organisations. As a trained editor, he has worked on a range of scientific and educational publications for Cambridge-based publishers.

Forests hold a significant proportion of global biodiversity and terrestrial carbon stocks and are at the forefront of human-induced global change. The dynamics and distribution of forest vegetation determines the habitat for other organisms, and regulates the delivery of ecosystem services, including carbon storage. Presenting recent research across temperate and tropical ecosystems, this volume synthesises the numerous ways that forests are responding to global change and includes perspectives on: • the role of forests in the global carbon and energy budgets • historical patterns of forest change and diversification • contemporary mechanisms of community assembly and implications of underlying drivers of global change • the ways in which forests supply ecosystem services that support human lives. The chapters represent case studies drawn from the authors' expertise, highlighting exciting new research and providing information that will be valuable to academics, students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in this field