How many different scientists are working on research for CTFS (The Center For Tropical Forest Science)?
STUART: Well over a hundred scientists are now working with CTFS throughout the world. We have scientists from the United States, we have scientists from Europe and Australia, but we also have many, many scientists now – and this is a very important mission of CTFS – from within the tropical countries where we work. We also have an increasing number of students and post-doctoral researchers and faculty researchers doing all kinds of studies in their own forests. Interviewer: What are the big research questions that everybody is trying to work on? STUART: The major research question that motivates our program and has since the start, is why there are so many species of trees in tropical rainforests. We have, in some of our research plots, more species of trees than the whole of North America or the whole of Europe and that is a phenomenal number of species. A thousand species or twelve hundred species in one plot and we want to know why, how that is maintained, and how that is potential
