A symposium-workshop is proposed on Landslide Ecology - A perspective from Tropical Mountainscapes that has three main goals: First, to expose ecologists to a conceptual model that emphasizes deep connections between ecosystem and geomorphic processes, and the resulting large-scale dynamics of tropical mountains mediated by landslides. Bringing together experts with diverse backgrounds to think about their own landslide work in a broader context is a first step towards breaking down barriers within and among disciplines. Second, to share the limited, yet diverse work on landslide ecology with an audience coming from nations in which landsliding is a relevant process. The ecologists participating in this symposium-workshop use diverse techniques (field and lab work, tree ring analysis, remote sensing, GIS, and modeling) to examine a diverse array of questions in mountain systems world-wide. Lastly, to outline a strategic program that will contribute to a sustained growth of the field of landslide ecology, and more broadly speaking of emerging fields linking biology with geosciences.
Broader impacts - The proposed symposium-workshop will bring together for the first time students and faculty investigating the influence of landslides on tropical and subtropical montane ecosystems, catalyzing at the same time the establishment of a network of collaborators. In addition, the symposium-workshop is meant to challenge ecologists to think of ways in which ecosystems influence this geomorphic process by exposing them to the physical aspects underlying the formation of landslides. This symposium-workshop has been programmed as part of the annual meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation, Kunming, China, and therefore it is expected to have a multiplicative effect. In fact, this meeting attracts an audience for which mountains and landslides are important. The results of this symposiumworkshop will be published, and in addition, the summaries will be posted on a web page (http://ursula.cnnet.upr.edu/landslides/) that will focus on landslide ecology. Overall, this symposium-workshop will highlight the contribution that ecologists can make to understand a large-scale geomorphic process with evolutionary, ecological, environmental, and societal implications.
