MQ Safety Net: Explaining Global-scale Gradients in Forest Dynamics and Biodiversity

This project aims to show whether demographic rates control variation in species richness by leveraging a global data set of forest inventories. It intends to bring together an international team of plant ecologists to construct a definitive, open-access database of hitherto unpublished repeat censuses. The data are need to quantify recruitment, mortality, and richness. This project is intended to test the intermediate disturbance and species-energy hypotheses, help to explain latitudinal biodiversity gradients, and show whether global change will cause biodiversity loss by altering rates. It is designed to build international collaborations, raise Australia's profile, and make key data available to ecologists from around the world.