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Nutrient Export from Tropical Rain Forests

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Modern Trends in Applied Terrestrial Ecology

Abstract

Water flowing through terrestrial ecosystems links atmosphere, vegetation, soil, and surface waters. Because of this intimate connection between a river and its valley (as eloquently described by Hynes, 1975), disturbance of terrestrial ecosystems in a humid basin is likely to be reflected in elemental losses in stream and river water. Early work using the small watershed approach at Hubbard Brook in New Hampshire demonstrated the power of quantifying elemental inputs and outputs to characterize the ecosystem-level response to a terrestrial disturbance (Likens et al., 1978). In the years since publication of that seminal paper, the value of using stream and river chemistry as a measure of the severity of disturbance in a landscape has been widely accepted (Ranger and Turpault, 1999). Because streams usually integrate and synthesize the effects of disturbance better than direct sampling of terrestrial landscapes, changes in stream chemistry provide a powerful tool for understanding the effects of disturbance ntropical rain forests (e.g., Schaefer et al., 2000).

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  1. Department of Natural Resources, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, 03824, USA

    William H. McDowell

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  1. Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

    R. S. Ambasht  & Navin K. Ambasht  & 

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McDowell, W.H. (2002). Nutrient Export from Tropical Rain Forests. In: Ambasht, R.S., Ambasht, N.K. (eds) Modern Trends in Applied Terrestrial Ecology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0223-4_8

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