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Science 23 November 2001:
Vol. 294. no. 5547, p. 1613
DOI: 10.1126/science.294.5547.1613e
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This Week in Science

What causes the high species richness of trees in tropical rain forests? Arguments have increasingly focused on the role of disturbance, in the form of gaps in the canopy created by dead and fallen trees, in helping to maintain this richness. In a survey of selectively logged and unexploited forests in French Guiana, Molino et al. (p. 1702) assessed the effects of larger scale impacts of logging in tropical forests compared to the smaller disturbances caused by naturally occurring canopy gaps. Their findings provide support for the hypothesis that intermediate levels of disturbance produce maximum species richness.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)