This book is not an exhaustive survey of known information in the manner of a text-book -the subject is much too big for this to be possible in a relatively concise volume- but presents a point of view. We are concerned ultimately with the analysis of tropical ecosystems, mainly forests, in terms of their constituent units, the individual trees. Many different approaches are possible in the analysis of tropical forests. A simple one is to treat the trees as obstacles which in a military sense intercept projectiles or are a hin- drance to foot soldiers (ADDOR et aI., 1970). A similar ap-...