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

摘要 巴罗科罗拉多岛 (BCI) 森林动态项目 (FDP) 是世界上针对物种丰富的热带森林开展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层面测试有关维持热带湿润森林树种多样性的竞争理论。 BCI FDP 是自 1980 年以来在新旧世界热带地区建立的类似地块全球网络的旗舰项目和模型。 建议于 2005 年对 BCI 的 50 公顷地块进行第六次完整普查，将研究期限延长至 25 年。 第六次普查的目标是更新自五年前上次普查以来所有茎直径≥1厘米的非藤本木本植物（约24万株）的补充、生长和存活数据，并分析各树种的种群趋势。 大多数热带树种，包括 BCI 上的树种，都相当稀有，这项研究对热带树种如何在稀有的情况下设法持续存在提供了基本见解。 这项工作将为几个不同国家的一些研究生和本科生提供培训，将雇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，并将添加到热带森林研究中心公开提供的庞大且不断增长的数据库中。这些结果对于为物种丰富的热带森林制定生态无害的保护和管理战略非常重要。

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.