Tropical ecology
While many might associate the region solely with the rainforests, the tropics are home to a wide variety of ecosystems that boast a great wealth of biodiversity, from exotic animal species to seldom-found flora.
The burgeoning ecological study of the tropics has led to increased conservation education and programs devoted to the climate.
[3] Inclusion of scientist from countries where rainforest is present is heavily encouraged because it extends global knowledge and research which advances scientific contributions, benefiting tropical ecology.
Men who might be considered early ecologists such as Alexander Von Humboldt, Thomas Belt, Henry Walter Bates, and even Charles Darwin sailed to tropical locations and wrote extensively about the exotic flora and fauna they encountered.
As the pair traveled from the base of the mountains to the peak, they noticed that the species of plants and animals would change according to which climatic zone they were in relative to their elevation.
[5] Another voyager, William Beebe, researched many species of birds in tropical locations and published a large gamut of academic works on his findings that greatly shaped the field of ornithology.
"[6] The work of these early pioneers not only lead to an increased interest in the burgeoning field of tropical ecology, but also had far reaching implications for scientific study on the whole.
As well as anthropogenic disturbances such as fires, hunting and trapping of organisms that play key roles in tropical biodiversity and natural processes.
[15] In the 1980s, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization conducted a study that concluded that 15.4 million hectares (100 acres) of tropical forest was lost per year.
This landmark study sparked widespread interest in the tropical ecosystem, and a great number of non-profits and outspoken ecologists engaged in an extended fight to "save the rainforest" that continues today.
This battle has manifested itself in a number of ways, one of which is the outcropping of biodiversity institutes in tropical locations dedicated to stopping the excessive deforestation of the landscape, one of the most notable of which was established in Costa Rica.
In the early 1990s, the heads of INBio signed a deal with the pharmaceutical behemoth Merck that called for cooperation between the two entities in discovering and exploring new natural treatments in the Costa Rican rainforests.
The temperature and geographical area of the tropics enforce the latitudinal species gradients by facilitating higher rates of speciation.
Tropical biomes are defined as warm, moist habitats, and cover the largest amount of the terrestrial area on earth.
Tropical species do not face the evolutionary pressure of harsh climates experienced in northern and southern regions.
The West Pacific Coral Triangle, a tropical ocean region, is the global peak of marine diversity because of its combination of warm temperatures, large area, minimal seasonal climate variation, diverse habitat types, important biotic relationships and influx of taxi from other tropical regions because of a complex mainland-island structure and ocean currents.
[21] The geographic and temperate history of the Cenozoic period is reflected in tropical ecology and more specifically the latitudinal species gradient.
In that sense, the tropics are a great place for ecologists to conduct diverse studies without traveling too far from a research center.
[26] In addition to climatic reasons, the traditionally sparse population of the tropics has greatly aided research in the area, as the landscape is largely untainted by mankind and machinery.
While this may not be the case so much as of late, the vast amounts of untapped land in the tropics still make for prime research territory.
Another example would be how studying lowland tropical rainforest can provide researchers with some insight into how hydrological and geomorphological processes have significant impacts on the ecosystem.
[27] Finally, the tropics are valuable to ecologists because they are home to some of the oldest lands on Earth, including Chile's Atacama Desert and Australia's Peneplain.
