At 50, Janzen-Connell has come of age
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2020-12-01
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Fifty years ago, Janzen (1970) and Connell (1971) independently published a revolutionary idea to explain the hyperdiverse tree communities of the tropics. The essential observations were that seedfall is concentrated in the vicinity of fruiting trees, whereas saplings recruit at a distance from reproductive conspecifics. These observations were encapsulated in a simple focal-tree model constructed of intersecting curves for seedfall and escape from host-specific enemies postulated to attack propagules (seeds and seedlings) in the vicinity of reproductive conspecifics. In conflict with the thinking of the times, the mechanism operates from the top down rather than from the bottom up. A deterrent to broad acceptance has been the giant intuitive leap required to generalize the focal tree model to an entire forest community. Recent theoretical and empirical results have succeeded in bridging the gap between the focal tree model and its community-level implications. With these new findings, Janzen-Connell has come of age.
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Terborgh, J (2020). At 50, Janzen-Connell has come of age. Bioscience, 70(12). pp. 1082–1092. 10.1093/biosci/biaa110 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/34579.
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John W. Terborgh
John W. Terborgh is a James B. Duke Professor of Environmental Science and is Co-Director of the Center for Tropical Conservation at Duke University. He is a member of the National Academy of Science, and for the past thirty-five years, he has been actively involved in tropical ecology and conservation issues. An authority on avian and mammalian ecology in neotropical forests, Dr. Terborgh has published numerous articles and books on conservation themes. Since 1973 he has operated a field station in Peru's Manu National Park where he has overseen the research of more than 100 investigators. Dr. Terborgh earlier served on the faculties of the University of Maryland and Princeton University. In June 1992 he was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of his distinguished work in tropical ecology, and in April 1996 he was awarded the National Academy of Science Daniel Giraud Elliot medal for his research, and for his book Diversity and the Tropical Rainforest. He has served on several boards and advisory committees related to conservation, including the Wildlands Project, Cultural Survival, The Nature Conservancy, The World Wildlife Fund and both the Primate and Ecology Specialist Groups of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
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