While the rapidly expanding field of spatial ecology has profoundly shaped and deepened our understanding of the role space plays in the structure, dynamics, and diversity of tropical tree communities, tropical forest management models that incorporate spatial features are at an early stage of development.

In this talk, I explore the emerging field of spatial forest management models. I focus on the importance and implications of being spatial as well as the methods by which spatial features are incorporated into models. A variety of approaches exist for incorporating space, some explicit and others implicit. Spatially implicit models, in contrast to spatially explicit models, integrate the effects of spatial heterogeneity without explicitly accounting for the physical location of individual organisms.

I develop simple models for the management of tropical forests for timber production and biodiversity conservation. I investigate aspatial, spatially implicitly and spatial explicit models analytically and numerically. Using these models, I draw conclusions on the salient spatial features that must be incorporated into forest management models along with the ways they should be incorporated.