Taphonomic bias is a pervasive feature of the fossil record. A pressing concern, however, is the extent to which taphonomic processes have varied through the ages. It is one thing to work with a biased data set and quite another to work with a bias that has changed with time. This book includes work from both new and established researchers who are using laboratory, field and data-base techniques to characterise and quantify the temporal and spatial variation in taphonomic bias. It may not provide all the answers but it will at least shed light on the right questions.

Life As we Know It covers several aspects of Life, ranging from the prebiotic level, origin of life, evolution of prokaryotes to eukaryotes and finally to various affairs of human beings. Although Life is hard to define, one can characterize it and describe its features. The information presented here on the various phenomena of Life were all written by highly qualified authors including scientists, a professional athlete and three Nobel Laureates.

This book is concerned with the paradox that humanity depends on biodiversity and landscape systems for its survival, yet, at the same time, the current burden of humanity's use of living resources places the existence of these natural systems at risk. The role of human values, technological society and social and political processes in the creation and solution of the paradox are explored in this volume, whose origins lie in an international discussion meeting held at the PennState Center for BioDiversity Research. Leading contributors to the fields of biodiversity conservation, ecology, economics, entomology, forestry, history, landscape management, philosophy and sociology draw from their unique disciplinary perspectives to consider the origins, bases and possible solutions to this pressing problem.

The book reviews the literature on the ecological succession of plants on fallowed swiddens in tropical forests. Patterns of ecological succession in tropical forests are insufficiently understood, partly because results are scattered through a large number of case studies reported in academic articles. So far, no publication has attempted to bring these different case studies together to identify common patters and trends. The goal of the book is to review the different case studies, and identify common patterns of ecological succession in fallowed swiddens, as well as to pinpoint the factors that cause ecological succession in some areas to differ from those in other areas. The book is organised in four different sections: forest structure, forest diversity, species composition, and the factors that contribute to differences in forest recovery rates (the number of times the field was burned, the length of fallow period, the type of soil, and the type of forest). This book is an important contribution to tropical forestry and shifting cultivation. Deforestation and forest degradation are the largest sources of CO2, and shifting cultivation is one of the main culprits. For this (and other economic and political) reason governments attempt to curtail shifting cultivation by shortening the years the fields can be left fallow, or outright outlawing the farming practice. Yet, there is insufficient understanding of the processes of ecological succession in fallows, which raises the questions as to whether the policy fulfils its objectives. "

China and Taiwan have roughly one-eighth of the world's known species. Their approaches to biodiversity issues thus have global as well as national repercussions. Gerald McBeath and Tse-Kang Leng explore the ongoing conflicts between economic development, typically pursued by businesses and governments, and communities seeking to preserve and protect local human and ecosystem values. China and Taiwan have sharply different political and economic systems. In Taiwan, a public relatively more supportive of sustainable development, a free press, a more transparent decision-making process, and an autonomous civil society have influenced governance. Yet democratization has not guaranteed better environmental outcomes. In China, on the other hand, fragmentation of power and 'softer' forms of authoritarianism than in the Maoist era have created openings for NGOs, scientists, journalists, and officials seeking a sustainable future to participate in the environmental policy making process. The authors provide an explicit and comparative treatment of the national policies preserving rare, threatened, and endangered species and ecosystems. Considerable attention is paid to the actors involved in policy formation and implementation as well as to recent cases concerning biodiversity conservation in China and Taiwan. This comprehensive volume will appeal to students and researchers in the areas of political science, environmental science and politics, environmental activists in national and international NGOs, and members of multinational corporations working in developing countries.

This second edition of the book, "Green Web-II: Standards and Perspectives from the IUCN Program / Policy Development in Environment Conservation Domain- with reference to India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh" investigates the IUCN's role in global biodiversity conservation policy as well as in national program development in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. It explores how nature protection priorities and approaches are promoted or addressed by IUCN, and how environment conservation policies are created and maintained in states of South Asia with different capacities. It also evaluates IUCN's competency in biodiversity, climate change, nature conservation and environmental policy formulation at the global, regional and country levels. This book adds to our knowledge firstly by contributing to a small but growing body of work on the sociology of international organizations. International Governmental Organizations (IGOs), have previously been mainly the subject of political science. Secondly, it critically explores one of the largest and most active nature conservation organizations in the world. Thirdly, it also explores how IUCN actually goes about building protectoral programs with individual member nations. Finally, the research also shows the historical development of global institutions and IUCN's activities with member nations in helping to define or redefine the concept of global governance. The outcomes of this research will also be beneficial for global collaboration, networking, and for the identification of common concerns among the many environmental and conservational organizations at the international and national level. In this broader sense, the research outcomes might be beneficial to constituencies of the global North as well as global South because of the nature and coverage of IUCN and its role in conservation policy formation. This effort may serve as a model for additional research on international organizations. Technical topics discussed in the book include: The Motivation for Environmental Conservation- How personal efforts make a difference The Role of International Environment Conservation Organizations The Political Economy of Organizations, Network theory, Institutional theory, Stakeholder theory, Governance theory Governance performance and Competitiveness Popularity indices Knowledge creation and diffusion Conservation commons

Central Amazonian floodplain forests are an unique and endangered ecosystem. The forests grow in areas that are annually flooded by large rivers during mean periods of up to 8 months and at depths of up to 10 m. Despite this severe stress, these forests consist of over 1,000 species and are by far the most species-rich floodplain forests worldwide. The trees show a broad range of morphological, anatomical, physiological, and phenological adaptations that enable them not only to survive the adverse environmental conditions, but also to produce large amounts of biomass when the nutrient levels in water and soils are sufficiently high. This is the case in the floodplains of white-water rivers, which are used for fisheries, agriculture, and cattle-ranching but which also have a high potential for the production of timber and non-timber products, when adequately managed. Latest research on ecophysiology gives insight how tree species adapt to the oscillating flood-pulse focusing on their photosynthesis, respiration, sap flow, biochemistry, phenology, wood and leave anatomy, root morphology and functioning, fruit chemistry, seed germination, seedling establishment, nitrogen fixation and genetic variability. Based on tree ages, lifetime growth rates and net primary production, new concepts are developed to improve the sustainability of traditional forest managements in the background of an integrated natural resource management. This is the first integrative book on the functioning and ecologically oriented use of floodplain forests in the tropics and sub-tropics.It provides fundamental knowledge for scientist, students, foresters and other professionals on their distribution, evolution and phytogeography. "This book is an excellent testimony to the interdisciplinary collaboration of a group of very dedicated scientists to unravel the functioning of the Amazonian Floodplain forests. They have brought together a highly valuable contribution on the distribution, ecology, primary production, ecophysiology, typology, biodiversity, and human use of these forests offering recommendations for sustainable management and future projects in science and development of these unique wetland ecosystems. It lays a solid scientific foundation for wetland ecologists, foresters, environmentalists, wetland managers, and all those interested in sustainable management in the tropics and subtropics." Brij Gopal, Executive Vice President International Society for Limnology (SIL).

Japan s traditional and fragile satoyama landscape system was developed over centuries of human life on mountainous island terrain in a monsoon climate. The carefully managed coppice woodlands on the hillsides, the villages strung along the base of the hills, and the carefully tended paddy fields of rural Japan made possible the sustainable interaction of nature and humans. Radical changes in the middle of the twentieth century led to the abandonment of satoyama landscapes which now are being rediscovered. There is a new realization that these woodlands still play a vital role in the management of the Japanese landscape and a new determination to manage them for the future. This multifaceted book explores the history, nature, biodiversity, current conservation measures, and future uses of satoyama. The information presented here will be of interest in all parts of the world where patterns of sustainable development are being sought.

"

The United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, spawned a multitude of pro grammes aimed at assessing, managing and conserving the earth's biological diversity. One important issue addressed at the conference was the mountain environment. A specific feature of high mountains is the so-called alpine zone, i. e. the treeless regions at the uppermost reaches. Though covering only a very small proportion of the land surface, the alpine zone contains a rela tively large number of plants, animals, fungi and microbes which are specifi cally adapted to cold environments. This zone contributes fundamentally to the planet's biodiversity and provides many resources for mountain dwelling as well as lowland people. However, rapid and largely man-made changes are affecting mountain ecosystems, such as soil erosion, losses of habitat and genetic diversity, and climate change, all of which have to be addressed. As stated in the European Community Biodiversity Strategy, "the global scale of biodiversity reduction or losses and the interdependence of different species and ecosystems across national borders demands concerted international action". Managing biodiversity in a rational and sustainable way needs basic knowledge on its qualitative and quantitative aspects at local, regional and global scales. This is particularly true for mountains, which are distributed throughout the world and are indeed hot spots of biodiversity in absolute terms as well as relative to the surrounding lowlands.

The question "Why are there so many species?" has puzzled ecologist for a long time. Initially, an academic question, it has gained practical interest by the recent awareness of global biodiversity loss. Species diversity in local ecosystems has always been discussed in relation to the problem of competi tive exclusion and the apparent contradiction between the competitive exclu sion principle and the overwhelming richness of species found in nature. Competition as a mechanism structuring ecological communities has never been uncontroversial. Not only its importance but even its existence have been debated. On the one extreme, some ecologists have taken competi tion for granted and have used it as an explanation by default if the distribu tion of a species was more restricted than could be explained by physiology and dispersal history. For decades, competition has been a core mechanism behind popular concepts like ecological niche, succession, limiting similarity, and character displacement, among others. For some, competition has almost become synonymous with the Darwinian "struggle for existence", although simple plausibility should tell us that organisms have to struggle against much more than competitors, e.g. predators, parasites, pathogens, and envi ronmental harshness.

Despite acknowledgment that loss of living diversity is an international biological crisis, the ecological causes and consequences of extinction have not yet been widely addressed. In honor of Edward O. Wilson, winner of the 1993 International Prize for Biology, an international group of distinguished biologists bring ecological, evolutionary, and management perspectives to the issue of biodiversity. The roles of ecosystem processes, community structure and population dynamics are considered in this book. The goal, as Wilson writes in his introduction, is "to assemble concepts that unite the disciplines of systematics and ecology, and in so doing to create a sound scientific basis for the future management of biodiversity."

This book provides the first contemporary assessment of area-based conservation and its implications for nature and society. Now covering 15 per cent of the land surface and a growing area of ocean, the creation of protected areas is one of the fastest conscious changes in land management in history. But this has come at a cost, including a backlash from human rights organisations about the social impacts of protected areas. At the same time, a range of new types of area-based conservation has emerged, based on indigenous people's territories, local community lands and a new designation of "other effective area-based conservation measures". This book provides a concise overview of the status and possible futures of area-based conservation. With many people calling for half the earth's land surface to remain in a natural condition, this book taps into the urgent debate about the feasibility of such an aim and the ways in which such land might be managed. It provides a timely contribution by people who have been at the centre of the debate for the last twenty years. Building on the authors' large personal knowledge, the book draws on global case studies where the authors have firsthand experience, including Yosemite National Park (USA), Blue Mountains National Park (Australia), Bwindi National Park (Uganda), Chingaza National Park (Colombia), Ustyart Plateau (Kazakhstan), Snowdonia National Park (Wales) and many more. This book is essential reading for students, academics and practitioners interested in conservation and its impact on society.

With few exceptions, insects are perceived in industrialized countries as undesirable pests. In reality, relatively few insects interfere with us or our resources. Most have benign or positive effects on ecosystem services, and many represent useful resources in non-industrialized countries. Challenging traditional perceptions of the value of insects, Insects and Sustainability of Ecosystem Services explores the ways insects affect the ecosystem services we depend upon. It also fosters an appreciation for the amazing diversity, adaptive ability, and natural roles of insects. The book discusses how the ways in which we manage insects will determine an ecosystem's capacity to continue to supply services. It reviews aspects of insect physiology, behavior, and ecology that affect their interactions with other ecosystem components and ecosystem services, emphasizing critical effects of insects on the sustainability of ecosystem processes and services. The author examines the integration of insect ecology with self-regulatory aspects of ecosystems that control primary production, energy and nutrient fluxes, and global climate-functions that underlie the sustainability of ecosystem services. Clearly, we need environmental policies that meet needs for pest control where warranted, but do not undermine the important contributions of insects to sustaining ecosystem processes and services. With in-depth coverage of the multiple, often compensatory, effects of insects on various resources or ecosystem services and on the consequences of control tactics for those resources or services, Insects and Sustainability of Ecosystem Services recommends changes in perspectives and policies regarding insects that will contribute to sustainability of ecosystem services.

Among the unresolved topics in evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology are the origins, mechanisms, evolution, and consequences of developmental and phenotypic diversity. In an attempt to address these challenges, plasticity has been investigated empirically and theoretically at all levels of biological organization-from biochemical to whole organism and beyond to the population, community, and ecosystem levels. Less commonly explored are constraints (e.g., ecological), costs (e.g., increased response error), perturbations (e.g., alterations in selection intensity), and stressors (e.g., resource limitation) influencing not only selective values of heritable phenotypic components but, also, decisions and choices (not necessarily conscious ones) available to individuals in populations. Treating extant mammals, the primary purpose of the proposed work is to provide new perspectives on common themes in the literature on robustness ("functional diversity"; differential resistance to "deconstraint" of conserved elements) and weak robustness (the potential to restrict plasticity and evolvability), plasticity (variation expressed throughout the lifetimes of individuals in a population setting "evolvability potential"), and evolvability (non-lethal phenotypic novelties induced by endogenous and/or exogenous stimuli). The proposed project will place particular emphasis upon the adaptive complex in relation to endogenous (e.g., genomes, neurophysiology) and exogenous (abiotic and biotic, including social environments) organismal features discussed as regulatory and environmental perturbations with the potential to induce, and, often, constrain variability and novelty of form and function

The book is based on the author's life time experience in exploring and researching the genus "Avena." It describes some great events in oat research and minor stories along the way. It will be of interest and value to all those working with oats and to students and scientists of crop evolution, including those dealing with collecting and conserving wild genetic resources.

A first part deals with the morphology and taxonomy of the genus and a classification based on the biological species concept is presented. A further part is devoted to the author s research accomplishments in this genus. It describes morphological characters distinguishing between diploids and tetraploids of series Eubarbatae, the genetic relationships between them, and the mode of origin of the tetraploid form. The section Denticulatae, to which the common oat belongs, is extensively treated. Further, oat domestication and the newly domesticated protein rich A. magna are described. A third part deals with wild genetic resources of oat.

This book brings together a selection of 21 original studies submitted to Biodiversity and Conservation that address aspects of management for the conservation of biodiversity. The topics addressed include: lessons from the Northern spotted owl saga, hidden costs of implementing the EU Habitats Directive, the importance of recently created agricultural wetlands, cutting reeds to create a sustainable habitat, impacts and control of feral cats, selecting areas to complement existing reserve systems, beneficial effects of rabbit warrens, effects of fences on large predator ranges, spatial structure of critical habitats and connectivity, effects of an agro-pasture landscape on biodiversity, community involvement, reserve selection in forests, germ-plasm interventions in agroforestry systems, shade coffee plantations and the protection of tree diversity, reserves and the reduction of deforestation rates in dry tropical forests, reconciling forest conservation actions with usage by and needs of local peoples, weed invasion in understory plant communities in tropical lowland forests, problems of patch area and connectivity in plant conservation, the need not to focus just on hot-spots, and partitioning conservation across elevations.

The organisms and communities considered embrace birds, coral reefs, various large and small mammals, reptiles, forest trees, and dune and boreal semi-natural grassland plants. The contributions are taken from situations being confronted in regions including the Andaman Islands, Brazil, Canary Islands, the Caribbean, Finland, Germany, Guinea, India, Italy, Mexico, Myanmar, Poland, South Africa, Spain, and the USA.

Collectively, the studies presented here provide a snap-shot of the types of management actions being undertaken for conservation and their efficacy. This makes the volume especially valuable for use in conservation biology courses.

Reprinted from Biodiversity and Conservation, volume 18, No 4 (2009)

This book brings together a selection of 22 original studies submitted to Biodiversity and Conservation that address aspects of methods and practice in biodiversity conservation. The contributions deal with a wide variety of approaches to site selection and management, especially the use of bioindicators, surrogates, and other approaches to site selection. As no complete inventory of all taxa in any one site has yet been achieved, alternative strategies are essential and bioindicators or surrogates come to the fore. The articles included cover a wide range of organisms used in such approaches to in situ conservation: annelids, anurans, arthropods, birds, bryophytes, butterflies, collembolans, flowering pants, a lobster, molluscs, rodents, and turtles. Further, the habitats considered here embrace estuaries, forests, freshwater, grasslands, the marine, mountains, and sand-dunes, and are drawn from a wide range of countries notably Australia, Brazil, India, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, and the U. K.

Cryopreservation, well established for ex situ preservation of bacteria and fungi, is shown here also applied to bryophyte conservation. Finance is always a problem, and the final contribution examines the sources of money available for conservation action in an examplar country, Mexico.

Collectively, the studies presented here provide a snap-shot of the range of methods and practices in use in the conservation of biodiversity today. This makes the volume especially valuable for use in conservation biology and biodiversity management courses.

Reprinted from Biodiversity and Conservation, Volume 18 No 5 (2009)."

Outside Russia very little is known about the terrestrial ecology, vegetation, biogeographical patterns, and biodiversity of the enormously extensive ecosystems of Yakutia, Siberia. These systems are very special in that they function on top of huge layers of permafrost and are exposed to very severe and extreme weather conditions, the range between winter and summer temperatures being more than 100 degrees C. The soils are generally poor, and human use of the vegetation is usually extensive. Main vegetation zones are taiga and tundra, but Yakutia also supports a special land and vegetation form, caused by permafrost, the alas: more or less extensive grasslands around roundish lakes in taiga. All these vegetation types will be described and their ecology and ecophysiological characteristics will be dealt with. Because of the size of Yakutia, covering several climatic zones, and its extreme position on ecological gradients, Yakutia contains very interesting biogeographical patterns, which also will be described. Our analyses are drawn from many years of research in Yakutia and from a vast body of ecological and other literature in Russian publications and in unpublished local reports. The anthropogenic influence on the ecosystems will be dealt with. This includes the main activities of human interference with nature: forestry, extensive reindeer herding, cattle and horse grazing, etc. Also fire and other prominent ecological factors are dealt with. A very important point is also the very high degree of naturalness that is still extant in Yakutia's main vegetation zones.

Conservation and biodiversity of protists The conservation of biodiversity is not just an issue of plants and vertebrates. It is the scarcely visible invertebrates and myriads of other microscopic organisms that are crucial to the maintenance of ecological processes on which all larger organisms and the composition of the atmosphere ultimately depend. Biodiversity and Conservation endeavours to take an holistic view of biodiversity, and when the opportunity arises to issue collections of papers dealing with too-often neglected groups of organisms. The protists, essentially eukaryotes that cannot be classi?ed in the kingdoms of animals, fungi, or plants, include some of the lea- known groups of organisms on earth. They are generally treated as a separate kingdom, commonly named Protista (or Protoctista) in textbooks, but in reality they are a mixture of organisms with disparate a?nities. Some authors have hypothesized that the numbers of protists are not especially large, and that many have extraordinarily wide distributions. However, the p- ture that unfolds from the latest studies discussed in this issue is di?erent. There are many species with wide ranges, and proportionately more cosmopolitan species than in macroorganism groups, as a result of their long evolutionary histories, but there are also de?nite patterns and geographical restrictions to be found. Further, some protists are linked to host organisms as mutualists or parasites and necessarily con?ned to the distributions of their hosts.

1 Plantation forests and biodiversity: Oxymoron or opportunity? Forests form the natural vegetation over much of the Earth's land, and they are critical for the survival of innumerable organisms. The ongoing loss of natural forests, which in some regions may have taken many millennia to develop, is one of the main reasons for the decline of biodiversity. Preventing the further destruction of forests and protecting species and ecosystems within forests have become central issues for environmental agencies, forest managers, and gove- ments. In this di?cult task science has an important role in informing policy and management as to how to go about this. So how do industrial and other pl- tation forests 't into this? Plantation forests, comprised of rows of planted trees that may be destined for pulp or sawmills after only a few years of growth, appear to have little to c- tribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Yet there is more to this than meets the eye (of the casual observer), and there are indeed numerous opportunities, and often untapped potential, for biodiversity conservation in plantation forestry. With plantation forests expanding at a rate of approximately three million hectares per year, it is crucial to understand how plantations can make a positive contribution to biodiversity conservation and how the potentially negative impacts of this land use can be minimised. That is the topic of this book.

'Inspiring. [...] Crammed with lively interviews and grounded examples' Ashish Kothari, founder of Kalpavriksh Permaculture is an environmental movement that makes us reevaluate what it means to be sustainable. Through innovative agriculture and settlement design, the movement creates new communities that are harmonious with nature. It has grown from humble origins on a farm in 1970s Australia and flourished into a worldwide movement that confronts industrial capitalism. The Politics of Permaculture is one of the first books to unpack the theory and practice of this social movement that looks to challenge the status quo. Drawing upon the rich seam of publications and online communities from the movement as well as extensive interviews with permaculture practitioners and organisations from around the world, Leahy explains the ways permaculture is understood and practiced in different contexts. In the face of extreme environmental degradation and catastrophic climate change, we urgently need a new way of living.

Marine hard bottoms feature some of the most spectacular and diverse biological communities on this planet. These not only contain a rich treasure of genetic, taxonomic and functional information but also deliver irreplaceable ecosystem services. At the same time, they are highly vulnerable and increasingly threatened by anthropogenic pressures. This volume has collected contributions by 50 scientists from numerous biogeographic regions, dealing with characteristics of hard bottom communities. Distributional patterns in space and time are described, followed by analyses of the intrinsic and extrinsic dynamics producing these patterns. A strong emphasis is placed on the ongoing changes occurring in the structure and diversity of these communities in response to spiralling environmental impacts, and on state-of-the-art countermeasures aiming to preserve these ecological treasures. Finally, various values of diversity are assessed, hopefully as an incentive for enhanced conservation efforts.

Functional diversity (FD) defined as the value, range, and abundance of functional traits in a given community or ecosystem is increasingly accepted as a synthetic ecological concept that sheds light on ecosystem functioning. Functional group richness and functional biodiversity indices have been proposed to quantify the FD of a community, or some of its components. The comparative assessment of FD in different ecosystems and for different ecosystem processes would be an invaluable tool for a better and more general understanding of what are the functional roles of biodiversity in the provision of ecosystem services. In this volume we offer a synthesis of the methods used to quantify functional diversity and step by step examples to define functional groups and to estimate functional indices. We also compare communities, and changes of diversity along environmental gradients. All the examples may be reproduce using electronic data files and FDiversity, a free software.

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the assessment and management of potentially dangerous infectious diseases, quarantined pests, invasive (alien) species, living modified organisms and biological weapons, from a multitude of perspectives. Issues of biosecurity have gained increasing attention over recent years but have often only been addressed from narrow disciplines and with a lack of integration of theoretical and practical approaches. The Routledge Handbook of Biosecurity and Invasive Species brings together both the natural sciences and the social sciences for a fully rounded perspective on biosecurity, shedding light on current national and international management frameworks with a mind to assessing possible future scenarios. With chapters focussing on a variety of ecosystems - including forests, islands, marine and coastal and agricultural land - as well as from the industrial scale to individual gardens, this handbook reviews the global state of invasions and vulnerabilities across a wide range of themes and critically analyses key threats and threatening activities, such as trade, travel, land development and climate change. Identifying invasive species and management techniques from a regional to international scale, this book will be a key reference text for a wide range of students and academics in ecology, agriculture, geography, human and animal health and interdisciplinary environmental and security studies.

Human induced biodiversity loss is greater now than at any time in human history, with extinctions occurring at rates hundreds of times higher than background extinction levels. The field of biodiversity economics analyses the socio-economic causes of and solutions to biodiversity loss by combining the disciplines of economics, ecology and biology. This field has shown a remarkable degree of transformation over the past four decades and now incorporates the analysis of the entire diversity of biological resources within the living world. Biodiversity Economics presents a series of papers that show how bio-economic analysis can be applied to the examination and evaluation of the problem of various forms of biodiversity loss. Containing state-of-the-art bio-economic research by some of the leading practitioners in the field, this volume will be an essential research tool to those working on biodiversity issues in the academic, policy and private sectors.