| Long-term ecological research addresses questions to which short-term research projects cannot effectively respond because of the temporal scales over which many ecosystem processes operate. In North America, this type of research has yielded important information on key processes and organisms in many forest types, from eastern broadleaf forests to the coniferous forests of the west, and from tropical to boreal latitudes. Long-term ecological research (that conducted at the decade scale or longer) in the forests of North America has included watershed studies, silvicultural trials, establishment of permanent plots to assess forest demographics, and the study of disturbance regimes and predator-prey systems. Instituting such research in forest ecosystems... |
