The Effects of Vertebrates and Mycorrhizae On The Diversity of Tropical Rainforest Trees

9503217康奈尔这个项目的目标是测量地面生活的脊椎动物和菌根真菌对澳大利亚热带雨林树荫下树苗和树苗的影响。研究人员将使用田间围栏实验、温室生长实验和田间定量调查来确定动物和真菌在维持热带森林物种多样性方面的作用。这些效应很少在新大陆以外的热带地区被研究，也很少在任何地方进行实验测试。其次，这些影响将通过受控的野外实验进行研究，以检验来自其他研究的建议，即这些动物有助于维持雨林中的植物多样性。这对野生动物管理和生物多样性保护很重要，因为大型脊椎动物很容易在公园里狩猎和偷猎，而且在许多热带雨林中它们的数量已经减少，这可能导致这些热带雨林中树木的多样性以及其他物种的减少。

9503217 Connell The objectives of this project are to measure the effects of ground-dwelling vertebrates and mycorrhizal fungi on the seedlings and saplings in the shaded understory of an Australian tropical rainforest. The investigators will use field enclosure experiments, greenhouse growth experiments, and quantitative surveys in the field to determine the role of animals and fungi in the maintenance of species diversity in tropical forests. These effects have rarely been studied outside the new world tropics, and seldom tested experimentally anywhere. Second, these effects will be studies with controlled field experiments to test the suggestions from other studies that these animals help maintain plant diversity in rainforests. This is important for wildlife management and the conservation of biodiversity, because large vertebrates are vulnerable to hunting and poaching in parks, and their numbers have been reduced in many tropical rainforests, which could then lead to a decrease in the diversity of trees, among other species, in these tropical forests.