Regional intercomparisons between ecosystems on different continents can be a powerful tool to better understand the ways in which ecosystems respond to global change. Large areas are often needed to characterize the causal mechanisms governing interactions between ecozones and their environments. Factors such as weather and climate patterns, land-ocean and land-atmosphere interactions all play important roles. As a result of the strong physical north-south symmetry between the western coasts of North and South America, the similarities in climate, coastal oceanography and physiography between these two regions have been extensively documented. High Latitude Rain Forests and Associated Ecosystems of the West Coast of the Americas presents current research on West Coast forest and river ecology, and compares ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest with those of South America.
