The Ecology of Tropical East Asia

Abstract

Tropical East Asia is home to over 1 billion people and faces massive human impacts from its rising population and rapid economic growth. It has already lost more than half of its forest cover and has the highest rates of deforestation and logging in the tropics. Hunting and the trade in wildlife products threaten all its large and many smaller vertebrates. Despite these problems, the region still supports an estimated 15–25 per cent of global terrestrial biodiversity and is thus a key focus for global conservation. This book therefore deals with plants, animals, and the ecosystems they inhabit, as well as the diverse threats to their survival and the options for their conservation. It provides the background knowledge of the region’s ecology needed by both specialists and non-specialists to put their own work into a broader context. The first edition was the first book to describe the terrestrial ecology of the entire East Asian tropics and subtropics, from southern China to western Indonesia, and the second edition extended the coverage to include the very similar ecosystems of Northeast India, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. The third edition updates the contents and gives more prominence to Anthropocene impacts and possible conservation responses. The accessible style, comprehensive coverage, and engaging illustrations make this advanced textbook an essential read for senior undergraduate and graduate-level students studying the terrestrial ecology of the East Asian tropics, as w…