a. Read the article and think about the issue the authors are describing, how their sought to improve our
understanding of this issue, and about how and why they conclude what they do about the speed and
overall ability of secondary forests to replace different aspects of old growth forests. And, think about
how much you believe or question their main conclusions and the reasoning they use to argue for this
importance. The authors are smart, very well–informed ecologists – but that does not mean that you
have to agree with what they are concluding. A particular question you should ask is how well their
different measures of forest functioning capture everything that we want to restore or preserve in
tropical forests.

b. Write a 2–3 page essay (double–spaced, 12 point font) in which you do the following:
• Briefly describe the data that were used, the analysis approach that the authors used, and what
conclusions the authors make in their paper. In particular, what do the authors feel are their most
general conclusions about tropical forest recovery?
• Discuss what makes this work important. Why is it important for understanding the conservation of
tropical forests and the restoration of their important functions? How well do you think that this work
would generalize across all areas of the tropics or even to other types of lost or degraded ecosystems?
• Describe what possible flaws or limitations you see in either the data or the assumptions the authors
make in analyzing the data they have assembled. In particular, what are the most important flaws,
omissions, or over–simplifications that you feel might bias the work? What else would you want to
consider to fully understand the timeline of forest recovery?
• Conclude with your thoughts about whether the arguments made are convincing and whether they
are strong enough and generalizable enough to be used to plan restoration policies.