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维持热带潮湿森林树种多样性的竞争理论。BCI FDP是自1980年以来在新旧热带地区建立的全球类似地块网络的旗舰项目和模式。这是一项建议，在2005年对BCI的50公顷土地进行第六次全面普查，将研究延长至25年。第六次普查的目的是更新5年前第一次普查以来所有茎径= 1 cm的非藤本木本植物（约24万株）的生长和生存数据，并分析各树种的种群趋势。大多数热带树种，包括那些在BCI上的，都是非常罕见的，这项研究为热带树种如何在罕见的情况下存活下来提供了基本的见解。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。这些数据将在科学文献和非专业文献中广泛传播，并将添加到通过热带森林研究中心公开提供的庞大和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健全的保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.