A variety of factors can affect the biodiversity of tropical mammal communities, but their relative importance and directionality remain uncertain. Previous global investigations of mammal functional diversity have relied on range maps instead of observational data to determine community composition.
Researchers have discovered that waterbirds around the equator are sensitive to global warming and are reacting more quickly than birds from regions with a more moderate climate.
As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity.
June 29 is the day the world gets a definitive answer to the question, “Are things getting better in the tropics?” The question might not seem particularly relevant to those of us living in North America. But the tropics and the temperate zones are closely interrelated. Each region has serious en
Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as “carbon sinks” and bringing closer the prospect of accelerating climate breakdown.
An expansive study traced the growth of 300,000 trees over three decades in Africa and the Amazon and compared how forests on the two continents were faring.The researchers estimate that intact tropical forests absorbed 46 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the 1990s, but this
Tropical deforestation is having a greater impact on the global carbon cycle than was previously realized, according to new research.
Tropical forests and coral reefs are experiencing a shocking collapse driven by climate change, human action and extreme weather such as hurricanes, floods and heatwaves.
Massive overhunting of wildlife for meat across the humid tropics is now causing local extinctions of
numerous species. Rural people often rely heavily on wild meat, but, in many areas, this important source of
food and income is either already lost or is being rapidly depleted. The problem can only be tackled by looking at
the wider economic and institutional context within which such hunting occurs, from household economics
to global terms of trade. Conservation efforts must be placed within a landscape context; a mosaic of hunted
Escalating anthropogenic impacts on tropical biodiversity have increased the vulnerability of endemic species. Selective harvesting of species is one of the major threats to birds and mammal species in the tropics. Many indigenous cultures, however, have long established cultural associations with certain species. The hunting and trade of species have been mainly for subsistence and socio-cultural ties within their communities.