“Canopy-Less” monitoring of biodiversity and climate change: Signs of a leaky roof

Abstract

Several anthropogenic factors such as selective logging, agriculture, and fire have led to severe deforestation globally; these are considered as major forces of ecological change throughout tropical regions (Asne et al. 2006; Hansen et al. 2010). A number of studies show that such changes alter species distributions and abundance (Hansen and Defries 2004; Laurance and Peres 2006) and in the future may even lead to the extinction of a large fraction of the species on earth (e.g., Thomas et al. 2004; Raxworthy et al. 2008).