Tropical forests are critical for global biodiversity, carbon storage, and climate regulation, yet understanding forest processes in tropical mountains and islands remains a major scientific challenge. These regions are characterized by steep environmental gradients, highly heterogeneous climates and landscapes, and complex biogeophysical interactions that complicate observation, scaling, modeling, and prediction.

This session aims to advance understanding of tropical mountain and island systems, with an emphasis on forest ecosystems, while fostering connections among researchers across regions, disciplines, and career stages. We welcome abstracts addressing processes and patterns across spatial and temporal scales, including but not limited to land-atmosphere interactions, vegetation-climate feedbacks, land use and land cover change, invasive species impacts, tropical montane cloud forest ecohydrology, and emerging techniques, sensor networks, and datasets that improve observation, modeling, and prediction in heterogeneous environments.

• A - Atmospheric Sciences
• GC - Global Environmental Change
• H - Hydrology