Human Impact and Long-term Changes in the Rainforests of Borneo

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9974133PrimackHuman activities have come to dominate ecological processes in tropical rainforests today. Most research on this topic has focused on direct destruction and fragmentation, resulting from logging, agriculture, ranching and fire. However, comparatively little information has been gathered about the effects of human activities on large areas of protected primary forest. These protected areas often were established specifically to protect biological diversity, but at present it is unknown how human activities will affect forest processes over periods of decades or centuries. As an example, the island of Borneo is one of the centers of biological diversity, yet is protected forests are increasingly affected by logging, hunting, gathering of forest products and lad clearing. Throughout Borneo, such forests are growing ever more isolated by massive logging operations and conversion of land to agriculture, and are potentially at risk from widespread effects of air pollution and global climate change. These forests are also subject to periodic droughts, such as those that occurred in 1997 and 1998. This project will examine hypotheses regarding the effects of increasing levels of human impacts on forest structure, forest dynamics, and species composition at three contrasting protected forests in Malaysian Borneo. Trees in these forests have been censused at 5-year intervals since 1965 making this among the oldest continuously recorded plots in primary tropical rainforest. In this project, a complete re-census of trees will occur in 2000, along with some sampling of saplings and seedlings. Analyses will compare early census periods to later census periods to determine hoe the forest structure, demographic processes, and community composition are changing with increasing human activity. As these protected forests in Borneo are increasingly affected by human activities, it is vital to assess human impact as soon as possible. The information provided by this research will be valuable not only for increasing our knowledge of community ecology and forest dynamics, but also for effective forest management and park planning.