Hurricanes are major perturbations in Caribbean forests. They result in canopy removal and deposition of pulses of litter to the forest floor, which can alter biotic and biogeochemical processes. In Puerto Rico, Hurricane Georges (1998) struck the Luquillo Mountains and caused 0.55 – 0.93 times the annual litterfall. Forest floor standing stocks were then 1.2 - 2.5 times greater than pre-Georges values. Litter standing stocks returned to normal within a year; but it was not clear if canopy opening and/or hurricane litter deposition had stimulated decomposition.

Conservation Management and Community Integration: Comparative Case Studies for Puerto Rico
Lindsay Cray ^1,2 William Gould² Diane Kuehn¹ and Charles Hall¹

1. SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse , NY 13210.

2. USDA Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico.

 In temperate systems, invertebrate consumers have known impacts to ecosystem processes, but in tropical ecology, it is assumed that only plant and microbes affect these processes. This study investigated what impacts common folivores (walking sticks) and detritivores (litter snails) have on decomposition, nutrient cycling and primary productivity in the understory of the Luquillo rainforest (LUQ). To test these effects, we started an enclosure experiment with consumers both present and absent in 2005.

Leaf leaching is a potentially important source of nutrients and carbon in tropical streams. This study examined the leaching rate and variability among species and condition (fresh vs. senesced) of DOC, NH4, NO3, PO4, and other major anions and cations from leaves of common riparian tree species in the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico. Uniform leaf disks were leached in deionized water for one, three, and seven days and the carbon and nutrient content of the resulting leachate was determined.