Tropical aquatic (marine and freshwater) and terrestrial ecosystems are global biodiversity hotspots increasingly under pressure from a growing population. The complexity and unpredictability of these systems present considerable challenges for ecologists, conservation biologists and natural resource managers. The global demand for food, energy and recreation, large scale industrial land use change and anthropogenic climate change present scientific and social challenges. Ensuring resilient tropical ecosystems and provisioning a broad array of ecosystem services necessitates maintaining biodiversity as well as ecological function at all its levels. Past and present mismanagement and habitat degradation require counter measures, including habitat restoration and developing novel management approaches for resilient tropical landscape mosaics which both meet the immediate livelihood needs of oceanic, coastal, and rural communities and the ecosystem services for broader society. This presents great challenges but also opportunities.
The annual conference of the Society for Tropical Ecology (gtö) will provide an interdisciplinary platform for discussing these major challenges and future opportunities in tropical Ecology including:
- Understanding tropical biodiversity at all spatial and taxonomical scales
- Defining resilient tropical ecosystems
- Novel approaches to understand and manage tropical ecosystems
- Conservation and restoration of tropical ecosystems