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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Botany & plant sciences
Forestry today, like many other sectors that traditionally rely on material goods, faces significant global drivers of societal change that are less often addressed than the environmental concerns commonly in the spotlight of scientific, political, and news media. There are three major interconnected issues that are challenging forestry at its foundation: urbanization, tertiarization, and globalization. These issues are at the core of this book. The urbanization of society, a process in development from the first steps of industrialization, is particularly significant today with the predominance and quick growth rate of the world's urban population. Ongoing urbanization is creating new perspectives on forestry, inducing changes in its social representation, and changing lifestyles and practices with a tendency toward dematerialization. The process of urbanization is also creating a disconnect and in some ways is leaving behind rurality, the sector of society where forestry has traditionally developed and taken place over centuries. The second issue covered in this book is the tertiarization of the economy. In society today, the sector of services largely dominates the economy and occupies the major part of the world's active population. This ongoing process modifies professional modalities and ways of life and opens new doors to forests through the immaterial goods they provide. It also profoundly changes the framework, rules, processes, means of production, exchanges between economic factors, and the processes of innovation. The third issue is undoubtedly globalization in its economic, political, and social components. Whether it's through bridging distances, crossing borders, accelerating changes, standardizing practices, leveling hierarchical structures, or pushing for interdependence, globalization impacts everyone, everywhere in multiple ways. Forestry is no exception. Forestry in the Midst of Global Changes focuses on these global drivers of change from the perspective of their relationships with how society functions. By analyzing them in depth through multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and even transdisciplinary approaches, this book is helping to design the forestry of tomorrow.
Exploring roles critical to environmental toxicology, Modeling and Simulation in Ecotoxicology with Applications in MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) covers the steps in modeling and simulation from problem conception to validation and simulation analysis. Using the MATLAB and Simulink programming languages, the book presents examples of mathematical functions and simulations, with special emphasis on how to develop mathematical models and run computer simulations of ecotoxicological processes. Designed for students and professionals with little or no experience in modeling, the book includes: General principles of modeling and simulation and an introduction to MATLAB and Simulink Stochastic modeling where variability and uncertainty are acknowledged by making parameters random variables Toxicological processes from the level of the individual organism, with worked examples of process models in either MATLAB or Simulink Toxicological processes at the level of populations, communities, and ecosystems Parameter estimation using least squares regression methods The design of simulation experiments similar to the experimental design applied to laboratory or field experiments Methods of postsimulation analysis, including stability analysis and sensitivity analysis Different levels of model validation and how they are related to the modeling purpose The book also provides three individual case studies. The first involves a model developed to assess the relative risk of mortality following exposure to insecticides in different avian species. The second explores the role of diving behavior on the inhalation and distribution of oil spill naphthalene in bottlenose dolphins. The final case study looks at the dynamics of mercury in Daphnia that are exposed to simulated thermal plumes from a hypothetical power plant cooling system. Presented in a rigorous yet accessible style, the methodology is versatile enough to be readily applicable not only to environmental toxicology but a range of other biological fields.
Bees are critically important for ecosystem function and biodiversity maintenance through their pollinating activity. Unfortunately, bee populations are faced with many threats, and evidence of a massive global pollination crisis is steadily growing. As a result, there is a need to understand and, ideally, predict how bees respond to pollution disturbance, to the changes over landscape gradients, and how their responses can vary in different habitats, which are influenced to different degrees by human activities. Modeling approaches are useful to simulate the behavior of whole population dynamics as well as to focus on important phenomena detrimental to bee-life history traits. They also allow simulation of how a disease or a pesticide can impact the survival and growth of a bee population. In Silico Bees provides a collection of computational methods to those primarily interested in the study of the ecology, ethology, and ecotoxicology of bees. The book presents different cases studies to enable readers to understand the significance and also the limitations of models in theoretical and applied bee research. The text covers modeling of honey bee society organization, infectious diseases in colonies, pesticide toxicity, chemical contamination of the hive, and more. Written by an international team of scientists, this book is of primary interest to those whose research or professional activity is directly concerned with the study of bees. It is also intended to provide graduate and post-graduate students with a clear and accessible text covering the main types of modeling approaches that can be used in terrestrial ecology and ecotoxicology.
This volume of the English translation of the series prepared by the Komarov Botanical Institute covers Altai, Khangai and Kentei ranges in the north, Greater Khingan Range in the east, Pamir in the west, the Great Wall in the Southeast and the Himalayas in the south.
This volume of the English translation of the series prepared by the Komarov Botanical Institute covers Altai, Khangai and Kentei ranges in the north, Greater Khingan Range in the east, Pamir in the west, the Great Wall in the Southeast and the Himalayas in the south. The book describes the families Liliaceae to Orchidaceae. Onions represent the largest and most important group in the volume, but many species of this genus are valuable fodder plants, as well as characterist plants of desert steppes.
This volume provides information about 306 species from 12 plant families of Siberia, such as Salicaceae, Corylaceae, Betulaceae, Fagaceae, Ulmaceae, Cannabaceae, Urticaceae, Santalaceae, Aristolochiaceae, Polygonaceae, Chenopodiaceae, and Amaranthaceae.
Eleven plants were chosen so as to cover a wide range of biological characteristics (perennial, annual, autogamous, allogamous, etc.) in this study. Three chapters on methodology complement these studies. The first is devoted to the use of biological and molecular markers to analyse the diversity of collections, the second addresses data analysis, and the third describes a method for constituting core collectaions based on maximization of variability.
An exquisitely illustrated, lively exploration of Latin plant names for gardeners. More than just a dictionary, this fascinating book explains the meanings behind hundreds of Latin plant terms, their flowering times, leaf patterns, natural habitats and all sorts of other useful information. Every gardener needs to know their Latin names. They may look confusing at first, but once you understand what certain key words mean, impenetrable-sounding and hard-to-pronounce species names are suddenly demystified. Many Latin names hide the secrets of where the plant is found, its colour, flowering times, leaf pattern, natural habitat and all sorts of other information that's extremely useful to the gardener: if you want a plant for a shady place, choose one with a name ending in sylvestris ('of woods'), while if your garden is dry, look out for the suffix epigeios ('of dry places'). More than just a dictionary of plant names, this fascinating book explains the meaning of hundreds of Latin plant terms, grouped into handily themed sections such as plants that are named after famous women, plants that are named after the shape of their leaves, plants that are named after their fragrance or the time of year that they flower. Within these pages you'll learn that Digitalis purpurea (the common foxglove) is purple, that the sanguineum in Geranium sanguineum means 'bloody' (its common name is the bloody cranesbill), and to steer clear of any plant whose Latin name ends in infestus.
Aquatic Plants: Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Applications provides a concise description of popular aquatic plants found across the globe. The chapters in this beautifully illustrated, full-color book focus on the aquatic species native to specific continents. Written by a global team of experts, this book explains the distribution, ethnobotanical uses, genome sequencing, chemical compounds, and biological activity of these plants and addresses the cultivation and sustainable production of aquatic and wetland plants. Features:
Aquatic Plants: Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Applications is a valuable resource for academics conducting research on aquatic plants and for professionals in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries who are involved with the therapeutic applications of these plants and their sustainable usage.
This book is a fundamental guide to understanding plant structure offering plant scientists, plant biologists and horticulturalists in practice, academic life and in training. It includes a combination of concise scientific text and superb color photographs and drawings, focusing on structure at anatomical, histological and fine structure levels.
The Gezira Scheme is Sudan's oldest and largest gravity irrigation system. The scheme has played an important role in the economic development of the country, and is a major source of foreign exchange. The farming system of the Gezira Scheme is dominated by crop production. The main crops grown are sorghum, wheat, groundnut and the oilseed crop sesame. Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is an important oil crop in the world and a new edible oil crop in Sudan. Knowledge of the effects of irrigation scheduling on sunflower production and water productivity under water stress conditions is becoming increasingly important. Irrigation scheduling is particularly important since many field crops are more sensitive to water deficit at specific phonological stages. Sunflower has several growth stages: emergence, vegetative, reproductive, flowering, seed formation and maturity. Water stress in each stage results in reduction in seed yield and oil content. The treatments in the test plots, which were conducted to study the effect of water stress at different growth stages, showed that sunflower was significantly affected by water stress that occurred in the sensitive flowering and seed formation stages. Highest seed yield was obtained when water stress was avoided during these stages. The AquaCrop model was used to simulate the seed yield and water productivity. The model was able to precisely simulate seed yield, but overestimated water productivity under different irrigation treatments.
The field of ecohydraulics integrates hydrodynamic and eco-dynamic processes. While hydrodynamic processes are usually well described by partial differential equations (PDE's) based on physical conservation principles, ecosystem dynamics often involve specific interactions at the local scale. Because of this, Cellular Automata (CA) are a viable paradigm in ecosystem modelling. All cells in a CA system update their states synchronously at discrete steps according to simple local rules. The classical CA configuration consists of uniformly distributed cells on a structured grid. But in the field of hydrodynamics, the use of unstructured grids has become more and more popular due to its flexibility to handle arbitrary geometries. The main objective of this research is to identify whether the CA paradigm can be extended to unstructured grids. To that end the concept of Unstructured Cellular Automata (UCA) is developed and various UCA configurations are explored and their performance investigated. The influence of cell size was analyzed in analogy with the Finite Volume Method. A characteristic parameter -min distance of UCA- was put forward and tested by numerical experiments. Special attention was paid to exploring the analogies and differences between the discrete CA paradigm and discrete numerical approximations for solving PDE's. The practical applicability of UCA in ecohydraulics modelling is explored through a number of case studies and compared with field measurements.
Structured in the form of a dichotomous key, comparable to those widely used in botany, the mineral key provides an efficient and systematic approach to identifying rock-forming minerals in thin-section. This unique approach covers 150 plus of the most commonly encountered rock-forming minerals, plus a few rarer but noteworthy ones. Illustrated in full colour, with 330 plus high quality mineral photomicrographs from a worldwide collection of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks, it also provides a comprehensive atlas of rock-forming minerals in thin-section. Commencing with a brief introduction to mineral systems, and the properties of minerals in plane-polarised and cross-polarised light, the mineral key also includes line drawings, tables of mineral properties and an interference colour chart, to further aid mineral identification. To minimise the chance of misidentification, and enable less experienced petrologists to use the key with confidence, the key has been arranged to prioritise those properties that are most easily recognised. Designed for simplicity and ease of use, it is primarily aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students of mineralogy and petrology, but should also provide a valuable source of reference for all practising geologists dealing with rock thin sections and their interpretation.
This book is a comprehensive review of the genera of Apocynaceae, a family of flowering plants that includes trees and shrubs, found in tropical East Africa. It presents information on their character, habitat, phenotypic variations and distribution of each of the species under these genera.
This series of books is a translation of Flora Evropeiskoi Chasti SSR, which provides information on the wild and most important cultivated plants growing in the European portion of Russia and its bordering regions. The text describes plant systematics, habitat conditions, range, and chromosome numbers. The series serves as a manual for botanists, agronomists, teachers, students and naturalists.
This series of books is a translation of Flora Evropeiskoi Chasti SSR, which provides information on the wild and most important cultivated plants growing in the European portion of Russia and its bordering regions. The text describes plant systematics, habitat conditions, range, and chromosome numbers. The series serves as a manual for botanists, agronomists, teachers, students and naturalists. Volume 6 of Flora of Russia includes descriptions of 450 species belonging to 65 genera and three families of the Order Fabales.
This book is a comprehensive review of the genera of Rubiaceae, a flowering plant family of mostly trees and shrubs, found in tropical East Africa. It presents information on their character, occurrence, habitat, phenotypic variations and distribution of the species under these genera.
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