Potential Impact of Climatic Change on Tropical Rain Forest Seedlings and Forest Regeneration

Abstract

Tropical rain forests are dynamic and continually regenerating by growth of seedlings up from the forest floor into canopy gaps that form on a cycle of usually a century of more in length（热带雨林更新是动态的过程，循环时间大概百年或更长，与林窗、林冠的形成有关）. Changes in seedling establishment, survival, and release in gaps could thus change canopy species composition for a long time（很长时间内，这样的动态循环会改变林冠物种组成）. Of likely climatic changes, evidence is presented that cyclone occurrence and increased rainfall seasonality could have important effects on seedling ecology. These forests and their species have lived through big Pleistocene and Holocene climatic changes, but today they are fragmented by human impact and so have less resilience to future climatic change. Management to accommodate climatic change should aim to reduce fragmentation and also canopy opening during logging operations. These are the same practices as advocated for biodiversity conservation. Tropical seasonal forests are also likely to be altered by expected climatic change, and also mainly at their regeneration stage.（加强对森林的管理，以应对气候变化带来的影响，其中之一就是避免片段化，以及减小林冠开度）