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FOUNDATIONS OF TROPICAL FOREST BIOLOGY

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Contents

Preface......................................................................................................................................xviiIntroduction Robin L. Chazdon...............................................................................................................1PART ONE Tropical Naturalists of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries Robin L. Chazdon and the Earl of Cranbrook.....................5PART TWO What Shaped Tropical Biotas as We See Them Today? T. C. Whitmore..................................................................69PART THREE Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives on the Origins of Tropical Diversity Douglas W. Schemske...............................163PART FOUR Plant-Animal Interactions and Community Structure Bette A. Loiselle and Rodolfo Dirzo............................................269PART FIVE Coevolution Robert J. Marquis and Rodolfo Dirzo..................................................................................339PART SIX Case Studies of Arthropod Diversity and Distribution Scott E. Miller, Vojtech Novotny, and Yves Basset............................407PART SEVEN Terrestrial Vertebrate Diversity B. A. Loiselle, R. W. Sussman, and the Earl of Cranbrook.......................................441PART EIGHT Floristic Composition and Species Richness Robin L. Chazdon and Julie S. Denslow................................................513PART NINE Forest Dynamics and Regeneration David F. R. P. Burslem and M.D. Swaine..........................................................577PART TEN Ecosystem Ecology in the Tropics Julie S. Denslow and Robin L. Chazdon............................................................639PART ELEVEN Human Impact and Species Extinction Rodolfo Dirzo and Robert W. Sussman........................................................703PART TWELVE Securing a Sustainable Future for Tropical Moist Forests D. Lamb and T. C. Whitmore............................................771Bibliography.................................................................................................................................837List of Contributors.........................................................................................................................861

Chapter One

Robin L. Chazdon and the Earl of Cranbrook

An earnest desire to visit a tropical country, to behold the luxuriance of animal and vegetable life said to exist there, and to see with my own eyes all those wonders which I had so much delighted to read of in the narratives of travellers, were the motives that induced me to break through the trammel of business, and the ties of home, and start for some far land where endless summer reigns. -A. R. Wallace, A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (London: Ward, Lock and Co., 1889)

The story of tropical biology begins with naturalists-explorers with a keen curiosity, an eye for variation, and a passion for collecting. Cartographers, missionaries, collectors, and chroniclers set out from their home bases in Europe to discover new worlds and to document the riches they discovered. These trailblazers brought home a new vision that changed the world in countless ways. Their many published works still speak to us today. In this part we highlight works of these pioneering tropical biologists, some of whom never lived to see their major works in print.

Naturalists of the Early Colonial Period

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century missionaries and explorers laid the groundwork for later scientific expeditions by beginning the process of documenting the biological riches of tropical regions of the New and Old Worlds (von Hagen 1951). Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo y Valds spent thirty-four years in the New World as a colonial administrator and royal chronicler to King Ferdinand of Spain. Oviedo's famous Sumario de la natural histria de las Indias was published in 1526 in Spanish, English, and French. Jos de Acosta, a Jesuit priest sent to Peru as a missionary, published Histria natural y moral de las Indias in 1590. This treatise on native life, medical flora, and diseases of the New World enjoyed phenomenal success in Europe. Early in the seventeenth century, the Dutch prince Maurice von Nassau-Siesgen traveled to Recife, Brazil, with fellow European naturalists and collected many botanical and zoological treasures, surpassing anything done earlier in the Americas. These collections were studied by Georg Marcgrave and Willem Piso, the first European scientists to study the flora and fauna of Brazil (F. Ortiz-Crespo, personal communication).

Compared to other centuries, however, the seventeenth was a "sterile century" for natural history in the Hispanic world-not a word was published during this time of inquisitions, prohibitions, and exclusivism (von Hagen 1951). Elsewhere in Europe, however, the lamp of curiosity burned as brightly as before. As natural sciences developed alongside advances in medical understanding, the seafaring nations of northwestern Europe extended ever further into the tropical world, in exploration for trade and discovery for its own sake. The coasts of Africa, India, Ceylon, the East Indies, and beyond were visited and trading outposts established. The Dutch had strong interests in botany. Their universities were equipped with botanical gardens and heated houses to cultivate tender tropical plants (Burkill 1965).

The Dutch East India Company set its capital at Batavia on Java, in the early part of the seventeenth century, and its officer Georg Everard Rumpf (Latinized as Rumphius) was soon settled further east in Amboina in the Moluccas. In 1662, Rumphius set out to make a systematic study of the flora, fauna, and geology of Amboina and arranged a leave of absence to devote himself full time to natural history endeavors (Sirks 1945). Disaster struck in 1670, when he went blind. Four years later, he lost his wife and youngest daughter in a violent earthquake. As if these disasters weren't enough, his books, collections, and manuscripts were destroyed by fire in 1687, and then the manuscript of his major work, Amboinsche Kruidboek (also known as Herbarium Amboinense), was lost at sea (although a copy survived). This and his other great work, Amboinsche Rariteitkamer, were published posthumously. In this monumental work, Rumpf describes and illustrates the organisms of the seas surrounding Ambon Bay, as well as minerals and rare concretions taken from animals and plants. An English translation is now available for the first time, under the title The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (Rumpf 1999). Yet, in his lifetime, through his specimens and correspondence, descriptions, and anecdotes of the natural history of this tropical region, Rumphius became known to the world of scholars and educated people generally. His floristic descriptions laid the foundations for a knowledge of the vegetation of Amboina and other islands of the Malay Archipelago. Moreover, as a precursor of the binary nomenclature of Linnaeus, he developed a system for naming crustaceans based on two names, a generic name followed...