University of Michigan
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Maria Uriarte
Assistant Professor
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology
Columbia University

Abstract
The world’s tropical forests harbor the majority of Earth’s biodiversity, regulate global climate, and form the basis for the livelihoods of rural communities worldwide, but the extent, structure, and composition of these forests are changing dramatically under the influence of human activities and their future is uncertain. These changes, however, cannot be treated in isolation. Rather, they must be understood as an aspect of complex and fluid landscape transformations such as agricultural expansion and urban-rural migration driven by regional and global factors. These direct impacts of human activities on forests interact with other anthropogenic drivers such as climate variability to affect the capacity of forests to provide ecosystem services. In this talk, I present results from research undertaken in the island about Puerto Rico about the compound effects of hurricanes and land use legacies of forest dynamics at the stand and landscape scales, and the consequences of these changes for water quality in the island.