In the last decade, the new theory of metabolic ecology has derived general predictions for a wide range of ecological patterns from fundamental physical and biochemical principles. Predictions for tree growth, mortality and size distributions are particularly significant in light of their potential to help explain globally important carbon stores and fluxes of tropical forests. In a forthcoming pair of papers in Ecology Letters, Muller-Landau and collaborators associated with the Center for Tropical Science test these predictions using large datasets from tropical forests around the world. Observed patterns of tree growth, mortality and abundance deviate substantially from the predictions of metabolic ecology theory, especially for large trees. Variation within and among forests is more consistent with alternative models presented by Muller-Landau and colleagues, models that can incorporate some of the complex variation in tree shapes, growing conditions, and mortality threats within and among diverse tropical forests.

'"/>

Contact: Katherine Palmer
katherine.palmer@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
10-Apr-2006

Page: 1
Related biology news :

1. Unravelling new complexity in the genome
2. First systematic study of Chinas one-child policy reveals complexity, effectiveness
3. NSF awards 17 grants for research on biocomplexity in the environment
4. Embryo fossils reveal animal complexity 10 million years before Cambrian Explosion
5. Evolution of irreducible complexity explained
6. John Templeton Foundation awards $2.8 million to examine origins of biological complexity
7. How E. coli bacterium generates simplicity from complexity
8. Expanding complexity of p53
9. NYU, Rockefeller researchers find complexity of regulation by microRNA genes
10. Genome of deadly amoeba shows surprising complexity, evidence of lateral gene transfer
11. Human complexity and diversity spring from a surprisingly few (relatively speaking) genes