Forests and Global Change

Forests hold a significant proportion of global biodiversity and terrestrial carbon stocks and are at the forefront of human-induced global change. The dynamics and distribution of forest vegetation determines the habitat for other organisms, and regulates the delivery of ecosystem services, including carbon storage. Presenting recent research across temperate and tropical ecosystems, this volume synthesises the numerous ways that forests are responding to global change and includes perspectives on: the role of forests in the global carbon and energy budgets; historical patterns of forest change and diversification; contemporary mechanisms of community assembly and implications of underlying drivers of global change; and the ways in which forests supply ecosystem services that support human lives. The chapters represent case studies drawn from the authors' expertise, highlighting exciting new research and providing information that will be valuable to academics, students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in this field.

David A. Coomes is a forest ecologist and conservation biologist working with the forest ecology and conservation group at the University of Cambridge. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecology and Biological Reviews and has authored more than 90 papers, including many from his group's work in New Zealand.

David F. R. P. Burslem is a tropical forest ecologist at the University of Aberdeen. He has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecology, and is a member of the editorial boards of Plant Ecology and Diversity and the Ecological Reviews series. He was an editor of the Ecological Reviews volume Biotic Interactions in the Tropics (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and has authored more than 80 papers on the ecology and conservation of tropical forests.

William D. Simonson is a forest ecologist specialising in Mediterranean systems. He has extensive practical experience, working in the UK and overseas, for governmental as well as non-governmental conservation organisations. As a trained editor, he has worked on a range of scientific and educational publications for Cambridge-based publishers.