The Effects of Vertebrates and Mycorrhizae On The Diversity of Tropical Rainforest Trees

9503217康奈尔本项目的目标是测量的影响，地面居住的脊椎动物和菌根真菌的幼苗和树苗在澳大利亚热带雨林的阴影林下。研究人员将利用野外围隔实验、温室生长实验和野外定量调查，确定动物和真菌在维持热带森林物种多样性中的作用。这些效应在新大陆热带地区以外很少被研究，也很少在任何地方进行实验测试。其次，这些影响将通过受控的实地实验进行研究，以验证其他研究的建议，即这些动物有助于维持热带雨林的植物多样性。这对野生动物管理和生物多样性保护很重要，因为大型脊椎动物在公园里很容易遭到猎杀和偷猎，而且在许多热带雨林中，它们的数量已经减少，这可能导致这些热带森林中树木和其他物种的多样性减少。

9503217 Connell The objectives of this project are to measure the effects of ground-dwelling vertebrates and mycorrhizal fungi on the seedlings and saplings in the shaded understory of an Australian tropical rainforest. The investigators will use field enclosure experiments, greenhouse growth experiments, and quantitative surveys in the field to determine the role of animals and fungi in the maintenance of species diversity in tropical forests. These effects have rarely been studied outside the new world tropics, and seldom tested experimentally anywhere. Second, these effects will be studies with controlled field experiments to test the suggestions from other studies that these animals help maintain plant diversity in rainforests. This is important for wildlife management and the conservation of biodiversity, because large vertebrates are vulnerable to hunting and poaching in parks, and their numbers have been reduced in many tropical rainforests, which could then lead to a decrease in the diversity of trees, among other species, in these tropical forests.