Human Impact and Long-term Changes in the Rainforests of Borneo

9974133原始人类活动已成为当今热带雨林生态过程的主宰。关于这一主题的大多数研究都集中在伐木、农业、牧场和火灾造成的直接破坏和碎片化。然而，关于人类活动对大片受保护的原始森林的影响，收集的信息相对较少。这些保护区通常是专门为保护生物多样性而设立的，但目前尚不清楚人类活动将如何影响数十年或数百年的森林进程。例如，婆罗洲岛是生物多样性中心之一，但受保护的森林越来越多地受到伐木、狩猎、林产品采集和LAD砍伐的影响。在整个婆罗洲，由于大规模的伐木作业和退耕还林，这类森林正变得越来越孤立，并可能面临空气污染和全球气候变化广泛影响的风险。这些森林还受到周期性干旱的影响，例如1997年和1998年发生的干旱。该项目将审查关于马来西亚婆罗洲三个不同保护区的森林结构、森林动态和物种组成的人类影响程度日益增加的假设。自1965年以来，这些森林中的树木每隔5年进行一次普查，使其成为原始热带雨林中最古老的连续记录的地块之一。在这个项目中，将在2000年对树木进行全面的重新普查，同时对树苗和幼苗进行一些抽样。分析将比较早期人口普查时期和后期人口普查时期，以确定森林结构、人口过程和社区组成正在随着人类活动的增加而变化。由于婆罗洲这些受保护的森林越来越受到人类活动的影响，因此尽快评估人类活动的影响至关重要。这项研究提供的信息不仅对于增加我们对群落生态学和森林动态的了解，而且对于有效的森林管理和公园规划都是有价值的。

9974133PrimackHuman activities have come to dominate ecological processes in tropical rainforests today. Most research on this topic has focused on direct destruction and fragmentation, resulting from logging, agriculture, ranching and fire. However, comparatively little information has been gathered about the effects of human activities on large areas of protected primary forest. These protected areas often were established specifically to protect biological diversity, but at present it is unknown how human activities will affect forest processes over periods of decades or centuries. As an example, the island of Borneo is one of the centers of biological diversity, yet is protected forests are increasingly affected by logging, hunting, gathering of forest products and lad clearing. Throughout Borneo, such forests are growing ever more isolated by massive logging operations and conversion of land to agriculture, and are potentially at risk from widespread effects of air pollution and global climate change. These forests are also subject to periodic droughts, such as those that occurred in 1997 and 1998. This project will examine hypotheses regarding the effects of increasing levels of human impacts on forest structure, forest dynamics, and species composition at three contrasting protected forests in Malaysian Borneo. Trees in these forests have been censused at 5-year intervals since 1965 making this among the oldest continuously recorded plots in primary tropical rainforest. In this project, a complete re-census of trees will occur in 2000, along with some sampling of saplings and seedlings. Analyses will compare early census periods to later census periods to determine hoe the forest structure, demographic processes, and community composition are changing with increasing human activity. As these protected forests in Borneo are increasingly affected by human activities, it is vital to assess human impact as soon as possible. The information provided by this research will be valuable not only for increasing our knowledge of community ecology and forest dynamics, but also for effective forest management and park planning.