Defining the conservation value of secondary tropical forests.

The article presents a commentary to the paper "Old Growth (OG) and Secondary Forest (SF) Site Occupancy by Nocturnal Birds in a Neotropical Landscape," by M. Sberze, M. Cohn-Haft and G. Ferraz. The author says the conservation of tropical forest biodiversity depends on the capacity of human-modified landscapes to maintain tropical forest species. She stresses the importance of understanding background variation within each of the forest types to evaluate SF-OG similarity. She also points out the need to determine conservation limits in SF.