Mesoscale exploration and conservation of tropical canopies in a changing climate

Abstract

Tropical forests harbor the majority of species found on land, yet we still know very little about the canopies that create habitat required for a vast array of flora and fauna. Tropical canopies remain a biological frontier, calling us to explore them in hopes of better understanding their composition, structure and function, and how they came to be. Yet we undertake this challenge at a time of very rapid change for tropical canopies, in terms of both their geographic extent and their condition. The global tropical forest landscape is changing at such a rate and with such complexity; the urgency of mapping and reporting on them has reached an all-time high.