Ariel E. Lugo,^* Caroline S. Rogers,^** Scott W. Nixon<sup>***


*</sup>Ariel E. Lugo PhD is an ecologist and Director of the USDA Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry. He has spent most of the past 35 years studying tropical forest ecosystems in various parts of the world. Dr. Lugo received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1988 and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the U.S. Forest Service in 1990. For many years he served as chairman of The Man and The Biosphere Directorate on Tropical Forest Ecosystems. With other colleagues, he is co-principal investigator in the National Science Foundation Luquillo Experimental Forest Long-Term Ecological Research Program in Puerto Rico. This site is dedicated to the study of the effects of large and infrequent disturbances on tropical forests. His address: International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service, PO Box 25,000, Rio Piedras, PR 00928-5000, Puerto Rico.a_lugo@upr1.upr.clu.edu
^**Caroline Rogers PhD is a marine ecologist who directs a research team conducting long-term monitoring of reefs around St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. This team is developing coral reef monitoring protocols for the National Park Service. Dr. Rogers' dissertation was on the effects of sedimentation on coral reefs. She has also done research on coral recruitment, effects of hurricanes on reefs, recovery of reefs from anchor damage, and reef metabolism. Her address: Caribbean Field Station US Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, US Department of Interior PO Box 710, St. John, VI 00830, USA.caroline_rogers@usgs.gov
^***Scott Nixon is a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography and serves as Director of the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program. He has worked for the last 30 years on the ecology of estuaries, bays, lagoons, marshes, and other coastal ecosystems. He is also co-editor in chief of ESTUARIES, the journal of the Estuarine Research Federation. In 1992, he received the B. H. Ketchum Award for excellence in coastal research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His address: Sea Grant College Program and Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, RI 02882-1197, USA.swn@uri.edu