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Chapter 3:
The opening quotation comes from The Song of the Dodo (New York: Scribner, 1996) by David Quammen.
In his The Diversity of Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1992), E.O. Wilson eloquently depicts rainforest diversity using the example of the number of ants in a bush: a single bush in the bush in the Amazon may have more species of ants than the entire British Isles.
The "Mean Net Primary Production by Ecosystem" table is derived from Holdgate, M. ("The Ecological Significance of Biological Diversity," Ambio Vol. 25, No. 6, Sept. 1996).
E.O. Wilson demonstrates the Increase in Diversity Towards the Tropics using the number of bird species in locations of similar size (The Diversity of Life, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1992).
The box, "Portraits of Rainforest Diversity" is derived from several sources: plant species (E.O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1992); butterflies (Robbins, R.K. and Opler, P.A., "Butterfly Diversity and a Preliminary Comparison with Bird and Mammal Diversity," p 69-75 in Biodiversity II. Reaka-Kudla, Wilson, Wilson, eds., Joseph Henry Press, Washington D. C. 1997); and insects (Didham, R.K. and Stork, N.E., "Rise of the Supertramp Beetles," Natural History, Vol. 107, No. 6. July/August 1998).
The section on stability - especially on competition and evolutionary processes - is heavily influenced by E.O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1992.
MacArthur and Wilson presented the idea that habitat size is correlated with the diversity of species in The Theory of Island Biogeography, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967.
The background for the Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems Project (Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project) is given in Lovejoy, T.E. et al., "Ecosystem Decay of Amazon Forest Remnants," in M.H. Nitecki, ed., Extinction, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984; Lovejoy, T.E. et al., "Edges and other effects of isolation on Amazon Forest Fragments." in M.E. Soulè, ed., Conservation Biology: The Science of Scarcity and Diversity, Sunderland: Sinauer, 1986; Wilson, E.O., The Diversity of Life, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1992; Quammen, D., The Song of the Dodo, New York: Scribner, 1996; and Laurance, W.F. and R.O. Bierregaard, Jr, eds., Tropical Forest Remnants: Ecology, Management, and Conservation of Fragmented Communities, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Smaller fragments suffered greater disturbance through tree falls and suffered losses of biomass according to Laurance, W.F. and R.O. Bierregaard, Jr, eds., Tropical Forest Remnants: Ecology, Management, and Conservation of Fragmented Communities, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997; and Laurance, W.F., "Biomass Collapse in Amazonian Forest Fragments," Science Vol. 278 (1117-1118), Nov. 1997. The work edited by Laurance and Bierregaard further surveys fragmented sites around the world coming to the conclusion that fragmentation reduces global biodiversity. A similar result is reached in Bawa, K.S. and Seidler, R., "Natural Forest Management and Conservation of Biodiversity in Tropical Forests," Conservation Biology Vol. 12 No. 1 (46-55), Feb 1998.
Island biogeography is discussed further in Williamson, M. (Island Populations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); Quammen, D. (The Song of the Dodo, New York: Scribner, 1996); Oosterzee, P. (Where Worlds Collide, New York: Cornell University Press, 1997); James H. Brown, J.H., and M.V. Lomolino (Biogeography (2nd edition), Sunderland: Sinauer Associates, 1998); and Whittaker, R.J. (Island Biogeography: Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
The box on population diversity draws from Hughes, J.B., G.C. Daily, and P.R. Ehrlich, "Population diversity: Its extent and extinction," Science 278: 689, Oct. 24, 1997.
Whitmore, T.C. (Biogeographical Evolution of the Malay Archipelago, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987) and Van Oosterzee, P. (Where Worlds Collide, New York: Cornell University Press, 1997) review the effect of the Ice Ages on Indonesia and New Guinea in their discussion of the Wallace Line. Both also briefly discusses some of the theories on the causes of global ice ages. More detail on ice ages is provided in J. Imbrie, (Ice Ages : Solving the Mystery, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1986); Raup, D, (Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? New York: W.W. Norton, 1991); Lundqvist, J. ("Quaternary climatic fluctuations, global environment changes, and the impact of man," Nature and Resources, Vol. 32, No. 4, 1996); Van Oosterzee, P. (Where Worlds Collide, New York: Cornell University Press, 1997); and Bradley, R.S. (Paleoclimatology (International Geophysics Series vol 64), Academic Press Limited, 1999).
"Doomsday genes" which may enable species to undergo radical structural changes in mere generations in response to sudden environmental changes are discussed in Rutherford, S.L. and S. Lindquist, "HSP90 as a capacitor for morphological evolution," Nature 396: 336-342, 1998.
Eldredge, N. and Gould S. ("Punctuated equilibrium: an alternative to phyletic gradualism." in T. Schopf, Models in Paleobiology, New York: WH Freeman 1972) introduce the idea of punctuated equilibrium as a new theory for evolution.
The merits of the "refugia" ice age theory are debated between Colinvaux, P.A., et al., "A long pollen record from lowland Amazonia: forest and cooling in glacial times," Science Vol. 274 (85-88), Oct.1996; Turcq, B. et al., "Amazonia rainforest fires: a lacustrine record of 7000 years," Ambio Vol. 27 No. 2 (139-142), March 1998; and Hooghiemstra, H. and van der Hammen, T., "Neogene and Quaternary development of the Neotropical rain forest: the refugia hypothesis, and a literature overview," Earth-Science Reviews, Vol. 44, issue 3-4 (147-183) Sept. 1998.
"Rainforest" is used interchangeably with "rain forest" on this site. "Jungle" is generally not used.
Recent news
Beef consumption fuels rainforest destruction (02/16/2009)
Nearly 80 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon results from cattle ranching, according to a new report by Greenpeace. The finding confirms what Amazon researchers have long known – that Brazil's rise to become the world's largest exporter of beef has come at the expense of Earth's biggest rainforest.
How to save the Amazon rainforest (01/04/2009)
Environmentalists have long voiced concern over the vanishing Amazon rainforest, but they haven't been particularly effective at slowing forest loss. In fact, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars in donor funds that have flowed into the region since 2000 and the establishment of more than 100 million hectares of protected areas since 2002, average annual deforestation rates have increased since the 1990s, peaking at 73,785 square kilometers (28,488 square miles) of forest loss between 2002 and 2004. With land prices fast appreciating, cattle ranching and industrial soy farms expanding, and billions of dollars' worth of new infrastructure projects in the works, development pressure on the Amazon is expected to accelerate. Given these trends, it is apparent that conservation efforts alone will not determine the fate of the Amazon or other rainforests. Some argue that market measures, which value forests for the ecosystem services they provide as well as reward developers for environmental performance, will be the key to saving the Amazon from large-scale destruction. In the end it may be the very markets currently driving deforestation that save forests.
Amazon rainforest damage surges 67% in 2008 (12/20/2008)
The area of rainforest in the process of being deforested — razed but not yet cleared — surged in the Brazilian Amazon during 2008, according to new figures released by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The announcement comes shortly after the Brazilian government reported a 4 percent increase in forest clearing for the year. Using an advanced satellite system that tracks changes in vegetation cover INPE found that 24,932 square kilometers of Amazon forest was damaged between August 2007 and July 2008, an increase of 10,017 square kilometers -- 67 percent -- over the prior year.
Cutting deforestation can fight climate change, reduce poverty and conflict (09/24/2008)
Forest conservation can play a critical role in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate poverty, said a prominent group of politicians, development experts, and environmental NGOs meeting in New York City to discuss U.S. climate policy.
Future threats to the Amazon rainforest (07/31/2008)
Between June 2000 and June 2008, more than 150,000 square kilometers of rainforest were cleared in the Brazilian Amazon. While deforestation rates have slowed since 2004, forest loss is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. This is a look at past, current and potential future drivers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
