US-Mexico Workshop on Neotropical Secondary Forest Regeneration: Morelia, Mexico, November 2009

世界各地原始热带森林的迅速消失要求我们迫切需要了解和预测次生林对地方、区域和全球生物多样性保护和关键生态系统服务的重要性。现在和未来的社会和经济将依赖于次生林的自然资本，次生林正迅速成为整个热带地区最主要的森林。这笔赠款将资助25名美国研究人员参加2009年10月在墨西哥莫雷利亚的墨西哥国立自治大学（UNAM）举行的为期3天的热带森林演替研讨会。该研讨会由墨西哥国立自治大学的Miguel Martinez-Ramos和Horacio Paz共同组织。联合国生态系统调查中心（CIEco）。研讨会参与者包括来自美洲和欧洲八个国家的大约50名高级、中级和年轻的研究人员。与会者将分为五个工作组，重点研究次生林更新的不同方面：1)物种相互作用和人口统计学；2)次生林物种功能特征与生态系统过程；3)林分和景观的物种组成；4)人类活动对森林更新的影响；5)次生林遥感探测。每个工作组将综合目前的知识状况和指导范例，确定主要辩论和不确定因素；讨论现有研究方法的局限性和挑战，并确定未来的研究方向。这些工作组产生的文件将为规划新世界热带地区次生林再生的综合国际研究和培训方案提供基础。研讨会还将扩大和加强现有国际热带森林研究网络以及美国和墨西哥长期生态研究项目的活动。

The rapid loss of old-growth tropical forests around the world calls for an urgent need to understand and forecast the importance of secondary forests for the local, regional, and global conservation of biodiversity and critical ecosystem services. Present and future societies and economies will depend on the natural capital in secondary forests, which are rapidly becoming the most dominant forests across the tropics. This grant will provide funding for 25 U.S. investigators to attend a 3-day workshop on tropical forest succession at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) in Morelia, Mexico during October 2009. The workshop is co-organized by Miguel Martinez-Ramos and Horacio Paz from UNAM?s Centro de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas (CIEco). Workshop participants comprise approximately 50 senior, mid-level, and young investigators from eight countries in the Americas and Europe. Participants will divide into five working groups focusing on different aspects of secondary forest regeneration: 1) species interactions and demography; 2) functional traits of species and ecosystem processes in secondary forests; 3) species composition within stands and landscapes; 4) effects of human activities on forest regeneration; and 5) secondary forest detection using remote sensing. Each working group will synthesize the current state of knowledge and guiding paradigms, identify major debates and uncertainties; discuss limitations and challenges of existing research approaches, and identify future research directions. The documents emerging from these working groups will provide a basis for planning an integrated, internationally based research and training program on secondary forest regeneration in the New World tropics. The workshop will also expand and enhance the activities of existing international tropical forest research networks, as well as the U.S. and Mexico Long Term Ecological Research programs.