A COP14 Insight: Planet's Ecological Diversity -Explanations Still Elude Scientists

In their attempts to properly predict what will come next to our planet as a result of climate change, scientists have been attempting to understand as much as possible. Predictive models can only provide accurate predictions when they are filled with all the data; without it, there are gaps.

Subsequently, scientists have been attempting to understand the ecological diversity of our planets flora. From rainforests to arboreal forests, researchers are busily trying to understand how everything works together.

It is similar to the attempts in another science, physics, to unify all that we know in a Grand Unifying Theory. While we understand a lot of aspects, all that we do know doesn’t necessarily match up with everything else.

"The global reach of the CTFS/SIGEO forest monitoring network, and the power to test theories of biodiversity depend entirely on independently motivated researchers who study trees in places from Yasuni to Papua New Guinea, on the other side of the world," said Eldredge Bermingham, director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

So in a new report in the October 24 issue of the journal Science, researchers claim that trees in a hyper-diverse tropical rainforest interact with each other and their environment to maintain the diversity.

2001 saw a scientist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Stephen Hubbell, professor at the University of California, LA, propose a neutral theory of biodiversity that suggested that all species are equal in terms of their ability to survive and reproduce. Hubbell’s research, based on 20 years of data, suggested that it was chance events that drove change.

Those 20 years of data was sourced from a long-term forest dynamics plot on Barro Colorado Island, which Hubbell co-founded in 1980. It was set aside as a nature reserve, and with an area of 54 square kilometers was set aside for research dedicated to studying the environment.

However Renato Valencia, professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and lead investigator of the Science journal article, disagrees. "If the neutral theory is correct, we would expect these traits to be distributed at random throughout the forest, but that was not the case.”

Valencia’s data came from a similar yet younger plot, based in the Yasuni forest dynamics plot of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. One of the most diverse tropical forest sites, Yasuni is comprised of 600 species of bird, 170 mammals and 1,100 species of trees across the 25 hectare plot.

There are more than 30 forest dynamics plots in 17 countries involved in the Center for Tropical Forest Science/Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory, and all are striving to resolve the conflicting evidence that is being found.

Posted by Josh Hill.

Source

In their attempts to properly predict what will come next to our planet as a result of climate change, scientists have been attempting to understand as much as possible. Predictive models can only provide accurate predictions when they are filled with all the data; without it, there are gaps.

Subsequently, scientists have been attempting to understand the ecological diversity of our planets flora. From rainforests to arboreal forests, researchers are busily trying to understand how everything works together.

It is similar to the attempts in another science, physics, to unify all that we know in a Grand Unifying Theory. While we understand a lot of aspects, all that we do know doesn’t necessarily match up with everything else.

"The global reach of the CTFS/SIGEO forest monitoring network, and the power to test theories of biodiversity depend entirely on independently motivated researchers who study trees in places from Yasuni to Papua New Guinea, on the other side of the world," said Eldredge Bermingham, director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

So in a new report in the October 24 issue of the journal Science, researchers claim that trees in a hyper-diverse tropical rainforest interact with each other and their environment to maintain the diversity.

2001 saw a scientist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Stephen Hubbell, professor at the University of California, LA, propose a neutral theory of biodiversity that suggested that all species are equal in terms of their ability to survive and reproduce. Hubbell’s research, based on 20 years of data, suggested that it was chance events that drove change.

Those 20 years of data was sourced from a long-term forest dynamics plot on Barro Colorado Island, which Hubbell co-founded in 1980. It was set aside as a nature reserve, and with an area of 54 square kilometers was set aside for research dedicated to studying the environment.

However Renato Valencia, professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and lead investigator of the Science journal article, disagrees. "If the neutral theory is correct, we would expect these traits to be distributed at random throughout the forest, but that was not the case.”

Valencia’s data came from a similar yet younger plot, based in the Yasuni forest dynamics plot of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. One of the most diverse tropical forest sites, Yasuni is comprised of 600 species of bird, 170 mammals and 1,100 species of trees across the 25 hectare plot.

There are more than 30 forest dynamics plots in 17 countries involved in the Center for Tropical Forest Science/Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory, and all are striving to resolve the conflicting evidence that is being found.

Posted by Josh Hill.

Source