Temporal And Spatial Patterns Of Vegetation Dynamics

During the International Botanical Congress in Edinburgh, 1964, Mrs. 1. M. WEISBACH-J UNK of The Hague discussed a plan for preparation by her publishing company (Dr. W. Junk b.v.) of an international Handbook of Vegetation Science. She proposed a series that should give a comprehensive survey of the varied directions within this science, and their achievements to date as well as their objectives for the future. The challenge of such an enterprise, and its evident value for the further development of vegetation research, induced the undersigned after some consideration to accept the offer of the honorable but also burdensome task of General Editor. The decision was encouraged by a well formulated and detailed outline for the Handbook worked out by the Dutch phytosociolo gists J. J. BARKMAN and V. WESTHOFF. A circle of scholars from numerous countries was invited by the Dr. Junk Publishing Com pany to The Hague in January 1966 to draw up a list of editors and contributors for the parts of the Handbook. The outline and list have served since for the organization of the Handbook, with no need for major change. The different burdens of editors and authors have compelled quite different timings for completion of the individual sections.

Understanding ecosystem structure and function requires familiarity with the techniques, knowledge and concepts of the three disciplines of plant physiology, remote sensing and modelling. This is the first textbook to provide the fundamentals of these three domains in a single volume. It then applies cross-disciplinary insights to multiple case studies in vegetation and landscape science. A key feature of these case studies is an examination of relationships among climate, vegetation structure and vegetation function, to address fundamental research questions. This book is for advanced students and researchers who need to understand and apply knowledge from the disciplines of plant physiology, remote sensing and modelling. It allows readers to integrate and synthesise knowledge to produce a holistic understanding of the structure, function and behaviour of forests, woodlands and grasslands.

Since the dawn of medical science, people have recognized connections between a change in the weather and the appearance of epidemic disease. With today's technology, some hope that it will be possible to build models for predicting the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases based on climate and weather forecasts. However, separating the effects of climate from other effects presents a tremendous scientific challenge. Can we use climate and weather forecasts to predict infectious disease outbreaks? Can the field of public health advance from "surveillance and response" to "prediction and prevention?" And perhaps the most important question of all: Can we predict how global warming will affect the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents around the world? Under the Weather evaluates our current understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious disease; it then goes a step further and outlines the research needed to improve our understanding of these linkages. The book also examines the potential for using climate forecasts and ecological observations to help predict infectious disease outbreaks, identifies the necessary components for an epidemic early warning system, and reviews lessons learned from the use of climate forecasts in other realms of human activity.

This multi-author book deals with ‘resource ecology’, which is the ecology of trophic interactions between consumers and their resources. All the chapters were subjected to intense group discussions; comments and critiques were subsequently used for writing new versions, which were peer-reviewed. Each chapter is followed by a comment. This makes the book ideal for teaching and course work, because it highlights the fact that ecology is a living and active research field.