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We live in an increasingly fragmented world, with islands of natural habitat cast adrift in a sea of cleared, burned, logged, polluted, and otherwise altered lands. Nowhere are fragmentation and its devastating effects more evident than in the tropical forests. By the year 2000, more than half of these forests will have been cut, causing increased soil erosion, watershed destabilization, climate degradation, and extinction of as many as 600,000 species. Tropical Forest Remnants provides the best information available to help us understand, manage, and conserve the remaining fragments. Covering geographic areas from Southeast Asia and Australia to Madagascar and the New World, this volume summarizes what is known about the ecology, management, restoration, socioeconomics, and conservation of fragmented forests. Thirty-three papers present results of recent research as well as updates from decades-long projects in progress. Two final chapters synthesize the state of research on tropical forest fragmentation and identify key priorities for future work.
A biologist records the time he spent in a remote area of Australia's tropical rainforest, and his run-ins with plant, animal, and human species alike. Photos and illustrations.
Conservation Biology for All provides cutting-edge but basic conservation science to a global readership. A series of authoritative chapters have been written by the top names in conservation biology with the principal aim of disseminating cutting-edge conservation knowledge as widely as possible. Important topics such as balancing conversion and human needs, climate change, conservation planning, designing and analyzing conservation research, ecosystem services, endangered species management, extinctions, fire, habitat loss, and invasive species are covered. Numerous textboxes describing additional relevant material or case studies are also included. The global biodiversity crisis is now un...
To understand how tropical ecosystems function we need to appreciate not only what plants, animals and microbes they contain, but how they interact with each other. This volume synthesizes the current state of knowledge of tropical biotic interaction, with chapters providing reviews or case studies drawn from research conducted in both Old and New World tropics, including interactions among taxa at all levels. An underlying theme of the volume is revealing the importance of the maintenance of high diversity in tropical regions.
This book “Biodiversity of lianas” under the series “Sustainable development and Biodiversity” is unique as it covers a wide array of topics in this subject covering all continents and will constitute a valuable reference material for students, researchers and forest managers who are concerned with biodiversity, forest ecology and sustainable development of forest resources. It contains peer-reviewed chapters from leading academicians and researchers around the world in the field of Plant Ecology, Taxonomy and related areas of Biodiversity Science but, centered on Lianology and includes original research articles, case studies and reviews (regional and global) in biodiversity, ecolog...
Lianas are woody vines that were the focus of intense study by early ecologists, such as Darwin, who devoted an entire book to the natural history of climbing plants. Over the past quarter century, there has been a resurgence in the study of lianas, and liana are again recognized as important components of many forests, particularly in the tropics. The increasing amount of research on lianas has resulted in a fundamentally deeper understanding of liana ecology, evolution, and life-history, as well as the myriad roles lianas play in forest dynamics and functioning. This book provides insight into the ecology and evolution of lianas, their anatomy, physiology, and natural history, their global abundance and distribution, and their wide-ranging effects on the myriad organisms that inhabit tropical and temperate forests.
There is a considerable gap between the science of conservation biology and the design and execution of biodiversity conservation projects in the field. Science is often failing to inform the practice of conservation, which remains largely experience-based. The main reason is the poor accessibility of evidence on the effectiveness of different interventions. This is the basis for this book adopting an 'evidence-based approach', modelled on the systematic reviews used in health sciences and now being applied to many policy arenas. Evidence-based Conservation brings together a series of case studies, written by field practitioners, that provides the evidence-base for evaluating how effective c...
The late Navjot Sodhi conceived this book as a way of bringing to the forefront of our conservation planning for the tropics the views of people who were actually working and living there. In its 31 chapters, 55 authors present their views on the conservation problems they face and how they deal with them. Effective long term conservation in the tropics requires the full participation of local people, organizations and governments. The human population of tropical countries is expected to grow by more than 2.5 billion people over the next several decades, with expectations of increased consumption levels growing even more rapidly than population levels; clearly there will be a need for more ...