ABSTRACT
Among the world’s forests, tropical forests have critical importance in terms of their natural resources, the enormous variety of biodiversity they house and their vast potential to conserve existing carbon pools and serve as carbon sinks (Brown et al, 1996). Forests are highly dependent on climate since they are limited by water availability and temperature. The IPCC Fourth Assessment report concludes that the resilience of natural ecosystems could be exceeded due to projected climate change in the next century coupled with multiple stresses (Fischlin et al, 2007). In addition, a global warming of more than 2-3°C above pre-industrial levels could lead to substantial changes in the structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems.
