David A. Coomes is a forest ecologist and conservation biologist working with the forest ecology and conservation group at the University of Cambridge. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecology and Biological Reviews and has authored more than 90 papers, including many from his group's work in New Zealand. David F. R. P. Burslem is a tropical forest ecologist at the University of Aberdeen. He has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecology, and is a member of the editorial boards of Plant Ecology and Diversity and the Ecological Reviews series. He was an editor of the Ecological Reviews volume Biotic Interactions in the Tropics (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and has authored more than 80 papers on the ecology and conservation of tropical forests. William D. Simonson is a forest ecologist specialising in Mediterranean systems. He has extensive practical experience, working in the UK and overseas, for governmental as well as non-governmental conservation organisations. As a trained editor, he has worked on a range of scientific and educational publications for Cambridge-based publishers.