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Second Growth The Promise of Tropical Forest Regeneration in an Age of Deforestation

By: Robin L Chazdon(Author)
465 pages, 16 plates with 18 colour photos and colour illustrations; b/w photos, b/w illustrations, tables
Second Growth
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  • Second Growth ISBN: 9780226118079 Paperback Jun 2014 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 6 days
    £38.99
    #209393
  • Second Growth ISBN: 9780226117911 Hardback Jun 2014 Out of Print #209394
Selected version: £38.99
About this book Contents Customer reviews Related titles

About this book

For decades, conservation and research initiatives in tropical forests have focused almost exclusively on old-growth forests because scientists believed that these "pristine" ecosystems housed superior levels of biodiversity. With Second Growth: The Promise of Tropical Forest Regeneration in an Age of Deforestation, Robin L. Chazdon reveals those assumptions to be largely false, bringing to the fore the previously overlooked counterpart to old-growth forest: second growth.

Even as human activities result in extensive fragmentation and deforestation, tropical forests demonstrate a great capacity for natural and human-aided regeneration. Although these damaged landscapes can take centuries to regain the characteristics of old growth, Chazdon shows here that regenerating – or second-growth – forests are vital, dynamic reservoirs of biodiversity and environmental services. What is more, they always have been.

With chapters on the roles these forests play in carbon and nutrient cycling, sustaining biodiversity, providing timber and non-timber products, and integrated agriculture, Second Growth: The Promise of Tropical Forest Regeneration in an Age of Deforestation not only provides a thorough and wide-ranging overview of successional and restoration pathways, but also underscores the need to conserve, and further study, regenerating tropical forests in an attempt to inspire a new age of local and global stewardship.
 

Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Perceptions of Tropical Forests and Natural Regeneration
1.1    Viewing Forests as a Cycle
1.2    The Resilience of Tropical Forests
1.3    Forest Regeneration, Succession, and Forest Degradation
1.4    The Geographic Extent of Deforestation and Forest Regeneration across the Tropics
1.5    The Tropical Forests of the Future

Chapter 2: Ancient Human Legacies in Tropical Forest Landscapes
2.1    Overview
2.2    The Peopling of the Tropics
2.3    Impacts of Early Hunter-Gatherer Societies
2.4    The Development of Agriculture
2.5    Holocene Climate Variability, Forest Change, and Agricultural Expansion
2.6    Conclusion

Chapter 3: Landscape Transformation and Tropical Forest Regeneration through Prehistory
3.1    Overview
3.2    Earthworks and Landscape Transformations
3.3    Prehistoric Fires: Synergies between Natural and Human Causes
3.4    Ancient Soil Modifications
3.5    The Scale of Prehistoric Human Impacts in the Neotropics
3.6    Paleoecological Reconstruction of Tropical Forest Regeneration
3.7    Conclusion

Chapter 4: Tropical Forest Dynamics and Disturbance Regimes
4.1    Overview
4.2    Disturbance Regimes in Tropical Forest Regions
4.3    Gap Dynamics and the Forest Growth Cycle
4.4    Detection of Tropical Forest Disturbance
4.5    Are Old-Growth Tropical Forests Stable?
4.6    Conclusion

Chapter 5: Successional Pathways and Forest Transformations
5.1    Overview
5.2    Variability in Successional Pathways
5.3    Successional Stages and Species Classification
5.4    Forest Definitions and Concepts
5.5    Approaches to Studying Tropical Forest Succession
5.6    Conclusion

Chapter 6: Tropical Forest Succession on Newly Created Substrates
6.1    Overview
6.2    Biological Legacies and Local Resource Availability
6.3    Colonization and Succession on Landslides
6.4    Succession following Volcanic Eruptions
6.5    Riverbank Succession
6.6    Conclusion

Chapter 7: Forest Regeneration following Agricultural Land Uses
7.1    Overview
7.2    Effects of Land Use and Biological Legacies on Propagule Availability and Modes of Regeneration
7.3    Effects of Land Use on Site Quality and Resource Availability
7.4    Conclusion
 
Chapter 8: Forest Regeneration following Hurricanes and Fires
8.1    Overview
8.2    Hurricane Damage and Regeneration
8.3    Tropical Forest Regeneration after Single and Recurrent Fires
8.4    Conclusion
 
Chapter 9: Forest Regeneration following Selective Logging and Land-Use Synergisms
9.1    Overview
9.2    Harvesting Intensity, Forest Disturbance, and Postlogging Forest Regeneration
9.3    Effects of Logging on Animal Abundance and Diversity
9.4    Consequences of Land-Use Synergisms for Forest Regeneration
9.5    Conclusion

Chapter 10: Functional Traits and Community Assembly during Secondary Succession
10.1  Overview
10.2  Environmental Gradients during Succession
10.3  Successional Changes in Life-Form Composition
10.4  Functional Traits of Early and Late Successional Species
10.5  Environmental Filtering, Functional Diversity, and Community Assembly during Succession
10.6  A General Scheme for Community Assembly during Secondary Succession
10.7  Conclusion

Chapter 11: Recovery of Ecosystem Functions during Forest Regeneration
11.1  Overview
11.2  Loss of Nutrients and Carbon during Conversion of Forest to Agriculture
11.3  Accumulation of Carbon and Nutrients during Forest Regeneration
11.4  Nutrient Cycling and Nutrient Limitation
11.5  Hydrology and Water Balance
11.6  Conclusion
 
Chapter 12: Animal Diversity and Plant-Animal Interactions in Regenerating Forests
12.1  Overview
12.2  Animal Diversity in Regenerating Forests
12.3  Plant-Herbivore Interactions during Forest Regeneration
12.4  Seed Dispersal and Predation during Forest Regeneration
12.5  Pollination in Regenerating Forests
12.6  Conclusion

Chapter 13: Tropical Reforestation Pathways
13.1  Overview
13.2  Reforestation Goals and Decisions
13.3  Reforestation through Management of Forest Fallows
13.4  Ecological Forest Restoration in the Tropics
13.5  Recovery of Biodiversity during Reforestation
13.6  Recovery of Ecosystem Properties during Reforestation
13.7  Conclusion

Chapter 14: Regenerating Forests in Tropical Landscapes
14.1  Overview
14.2  Land-Use Transitions and Forest Transitions
14.3  The Landscape Context of Forest Regeneration
14.4  Socioecological Drivers of Tropical Reforestation
14.5  Enhancing Forest Regeneration and Human Livelihoods in the Landscape Matrix
14.6  Conclusion
 
Chapter 15: Synthesis: The Promise of Tropical Forest Regeneration in an Age of Deforestation
15.1  The Power of Forest Regeneration
15.2  Tropical Forest Change and Resilience
15.3  The Current and Future Value of Regenerating Tropical Forests
15.4  New Approaches to Promoting Forest Regeneration
 
References
Index

Customer Reviews

By: Robin L Chazdon(Author)
465 pages, 16 plates with 18 colour photos and colour illustrations; b/w photos, b/w illustrations, tables
Media reviews

"Second Growth combines an in-depth review with an eloquent case for the importance of understanding, promoting, and managing forest regeneration in contexts ranging from climate change to provision of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. In doing so, it may help to meet those challenges by providing evidence to ensure that the value of secondary forests is recognized. It will certainly stimulate the science needed to support practical action."
- Valerie Kapos, Science

"Impressive and very timely given the growing recognition of the importance of secondary forests in conserving biodiversity. Second Growth provides a very thorough review of the human impacts on tropical forests over several centuries and more recently, and on the ecology of forest regeneration after a range of disturbances. It is a well-researched and valuable contribution to the literature on tropical secondary forests."
- Karen D. Holl, University of California, Santa Cruz

"A tremendous survey. Chazdon draws on paleobotany, ecology, natural history, and policy and forest management to make the case for the potential of forest regeneration. Second Growth is astounding in its breadth and depth."
- S. Joseph Wright, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

"What a wonderful book! Secondary forests have been ignored for too long, and Second Growth brings together a wealth of material from across the Latin American, African, and Asian tropics to provide a synthesis of what we know about how they can develop and what influences their succession. Sadly, even optimists must accept that primary or old-growth forests will continue to shrink. This means secondary forests are likely to replace them in the future as the main repositories of biodiversity and sources of many ecosystem services. This book is destined to become a key text for those protecting and managing these new forests."
- David Lamb, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

"At last, an authoritative and very readable account of the most neglected aspect of tropical forest ecology: the vast areas of second growth that if restored and managed properly will yield enormous human and conservation benefit. Chazdon's book fills a yawning gap in tropical ecology and land management. A great and important work, Second Growth will be an enduring scholarly masterpiece."
- Thomas E. Lovejoy, George Mason University, Senior Fellow, the United Nations Foundation

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