Tropical forests and global change: filling knowledge gaps

• Major knowledge gaps exist regarding tropical forests’ responses to global change.
• Filling these knowledge gaps requires a change in research approach.
• New approaches include tree-ring and stable-isotope analyses, field experiments, and simulation models.

Tropical forests will experience major changes in environmental conditions this century. Understanding their responses to such changes is crucial to predicting global carbon cycling. Important knowledge gaps exist: the causes of recent changes in tropical forest dynamics remain unclear and the responses of entire tropical trees to environmental changes are poorly understood. In this Opinion article, we argue that filling these knowledge gaps requires a new research strategy, one that focuses on trees instead of leaves or communities, on long-term instead of short-term changes, and on understanding mechanisms instead of documenting changes. We propose the use of tree-ring analyses, stable-isotope analyses, manipulative field experiments, and well-validated simulation models to improve predictions of forest responses to global change.