A new species of (Lauraceae) from the Bladen Nature Reserve, southern Belize.

A new species in the Lauraceae, S.W. Brewer & G.

, a new species and first record for the genus in Central America (tribe Spathelieae, Rutaceae).

L. as currently circumscribed is endemic to the western portion of the West Indies, and contains nine species, one endemic to the Bahamas, three endemic to Jamaica and five endemic to Cuba. The discovery of a new species in Belize brings the total number of species in to ten and expands its known distribution beyond the West Indies.

Iron controls over di-nitrogen fixation in karst tropical forest.

Limestone tropical forests represent a meaningful fraction of the land area in Central America (25%) and Southeast Asia (40%). These ecosystems are marked by high biological diversity, CO uptake capacity, and high pH soils, the latter making them fundamentally different from the majority of lowland tropical forest areas in the Amazon and Congo basins. Here, we examine the role of bedrock geology in determining biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) rates in volcanic (low pH) vs.