Will the Rainforest Survive? New Threats and Realities in the Tropical Extinction Crisis. Part 1

An important debate has erupted in the scientific community concerning the magnitude of future species extinctions in the tropics. This debate was ignited by an in-depth analysis of expected human-population and forest-cover trends (S. J. Wright & H. Muller-Landau. 2006. Biotropica) and has generated great interest in the fate of tropical biodiversity (reviewed in W. F. Laurance. 2007. Trends in Ecology & Evolution). The debate centers around two different theories: Wright’s position is based in part on United Nations figures that urbanism and lower population growth will allow abandoned areas to recover and tropical species to be spared versus Laurance’s claims that secondary and degraded forests will sustain only a fraction of tropical biodiversity and that industrial agriculture, logging, mining, and economic globalization, rather than changing rural and urban populations, are becoming the dominant drivers of tropical deforestation.

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Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Smithsonian
• Tropical Forest
• Species
• Extinction
• Science
• Global Warming