Research Overview
Secondary forests provide vital ecosystem services for both urban and rural populations, principally regulation of water production and quality, yet are also important for biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.The principal focus of my dissertation is to understand post-dispersal mechanisms that drive patterns of species abundance during secondary succession using a ‘functional trait’ approach. Furthermore, I will assess how the functional diversity of these secondary forests changes during succession and how these changes are related to other ecosystem services, principally biodiversity and carbon sequestration. My study site is located along the Panama Canal, between two large national parks (PN Soberania and PN Chagres) and Panama’s two largest cities (Panama City and Colon), in a landscape still dominated by agriculture and cattle ranching.
