The Dynamics of a Neotropical Forest: the 2005 Recensus and the Annual Seedling and Small Sapling Census

巴罗科罗拉多岛（BCI）森林动态项目（FDP）是世界上对物种丰富的热带森林进行的持续时间最长的大规模研究。该项目的建立是为了在整个树木群落水平上测试竞争理论，以维持热带潮湿森林的树种多样性。 BCI FDP是自1980年以来在新旧世界热带地区建立的全球类似地块网络的旗舰项目和模型。 这是一项在2005年对BCI的50公顷地块进行第六次全面普查的建议，将研究延长到25年。 第六次普查的目的是更新自5年前进行的上一次普查以来所有茎直径≥ 1 cm的非藤本木本植物（约24万株）的补充、生长和存活数据，并分析每个树种的种群趋势。 大多数热带树种，包括BCI上的树种，都非常罕见，这项研究对热带树种如何在罕见的情况下持续存在产生了基本的见解。 这项工作将为几个不同国家的研究生和本科生提供培训，将利用一批巴拿马植物学家，并向他们支付“生活”工资。这些数据将在科学和非专业文献中广泛传播，并将通过热带森林研究中心加入一个庞大的、不断增长的数据库。这些结果对于为物种丰富的热带森林制定生态上健全的养护和管理战略具有重要意义。

ABSTRACT The Barro Colorado Island (BCI) Forest Dynamics Project (FDP) is the longest running large-scale study in the world of a species-rich tropical forest. The project was established to test competing theories at the whole tree community level for the maintenance of tree species diversity in tropical moist forests. The BCI FDP is the flagship project and model for a global network of similar plots established since 1980 throughout the New and Old World tropics. This is a proposal to conduct the sixth complete census of the 50 ha plot on BCI in the year 2005, extending the study to 25 years. The objectives of the sixth census are to update the data on recruitment, growth, and survival of all the non-liana woody plants whose stem diameter is = 1 cm (about 240,000 plants) since the last census done 5 years ago and to analyze the population trends of each tree species. Most tropical tree species, including those on BCI, are quite rare, and this study is yielding fundamental insights about how tropical tree species manage to persist, despite being rare. The effort would provide training for a number of graduate and undergraduate students in several different countries, will utilize a group of Panamanian botanists, and pay them a "living" wage. The data will be broadly disseminated in both the scientific and lay literature and will be added to a massive and growing database publicly available through the Center for Tropical Forest Studies. These results are important for developing ecologically sound conservation and management strategies for species-rich tropical forests.