The aim of this book is to elucidate the role of forests as part of a landscape in the life of people. Most landscapes today are cultural landscapes that are influenced by human activity and that in turn have a profound effect on our understanding of and identification with a place. The book proposes that a better understanding of the bond between people and forests as integrated part of a landscape may be helpful in landscape planning, and may contribute to the discussion of changes in forest cover which has been motivated by land use changes, rural development and the global climate debate. To this end, people's perception of forest landscapes, the reasons for different perceptions, and future perspectives are discussed. Given the wide range of forest landscapes, and cultural perspectives which exist across the world, the book focuses on Europe as a test case to explore the various relationships between society, culture, forests and landscapes. It looks at historical evidence of the impacts of people on forests and vice versa, explores the current factors affecting people's physical and emotional comfort in forest landscapes, and looks ahead to how changes in forest cover may alter the present relationships of people to forests. Drawing together a diverse literature and combining the expertise of natural and social scientists, this book will form a valuable reference for students and researchers working in the fields of landscape ecology and landscape architecture, geography, social science, environmental psychology or environmental history. It will also be of interest to researchers, government agencies and practitioners with an interest in issues such as sustainable forest management, sustainable tourism, reserve management, urban planning and environmental interpretation.

Mongolia is an expansive land-locked country, tilted by tectonic forces to the North, that experiences extremes of continental climate. Moisture-carrying wind currents are scarce so that the land has extended highs and lows in its environment. Culturally the people are mostly nomadic, having been sustained for centuries by an economy based on domestic livestock grazing. There is a saying that, As the noses go, so goes Mongolia', referring to the domesticated grazing noses of sheep, goats, camels, yaks or horses, and wild ungulates such as gazelles. The vast fenceless steppes of Mongolia furnish the vegetation for grazing. With such extremes in climate it is clear that the vegetation must be resilient and dynamic to cope with the dictates of its extremely harsh environments. Pollen profiles from lakes, plant macrofossils and other data over the last 15,000 years show the dynamic nature of Mongolian vegetation. Currently Mongolian society is experiencing much human-driven economic development which increases pressure on its vegetation. The Great Khural Laws of 1995 forcefully addressed such environmental concerns with the expanded establishment of National Reserves and Parks. But continued effort and vigilance must be expended to insure that Mongolian society will continue to be sustained by its vegetation. This book highlights work such as conserving and restoring plant diversity in various ecosystems and makes recommendations for sustaining the vegetation basis of the nomadic Mongolian society.

Spatial Resilience is a new and exciting area of interdisciplinary research. It focuses on the influence of spatial variation including such things as spatial location, context, connectivity, and dispersal on the resilience of complex systems, and on the roles that resilience and self-organization play in generating spatial variation. Prof. Cumming provides a readable introduction and a first comprehensive synthesis covering the core concepts and applications of spatial resilience to the study of social-ecological systems. The book follows a trajectory from concepts through models, methods, and case study analysis before revisiting the central problems in the further conceptual development of the field. In the process, the author ranges from the movements of lions in northern Zimbabwe to the urban jungles of Europe, and from the collapse of past societies to the social impacts of modern conflict. The many case studies and examples discussed in the book show how the concept of spatial resilience can generate valuable insights into the spatial dynamics of social-ecological systems and contribute to solving some of the most pressing problems of our time. Although it has been written primarily for students, this book will provide fascinating reading for interdisciplinary scientists at all career stages as well as for the interested public.

""Graeme Cumming, central in the development of resilience thinking and theory, has produced a wonderful book on spatial resilience, the first ever on this topic. The book will become a shining star, a classic in the explosion of new ideas and approaches to studying and understanding social-ecological systems."" Carl Folke, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden"

The mangrove, seagrass and coral reef ecosystems are of paramount ecological importance but have already undergone great degradation, which is advancing at an alarming rate. If present trends continue, the natural resource basis of the economy and ecology of tropical coastal regions will soon be ruined. This was the unanimous conclusion of the 110 scientists from 23 countries who gathered in Mombasa, Kenya, for a Symposium on the ecology of these ecosystems. Mangrove forest systems yield large amounts of fish, crabs, prawns and oysters. They are also valuable sources of fuelwood, timber, tannin and other natural products. Their non-marketable value is of equal importance: stabilization of the coastline, an indispensable nursery ground for numerous marine species with commercial value, a natural filter maintaining the clarity of nearshore water, a home for resident and migratory birds and other wildlife. Many of the true mangrove flora and fauna are now endangered by the clearing of the mangroves. It has been shown that in many countries between 25 and 100% of the mangrove forest has been destroyed alraedy in the last twenty years. The international scientific assembly concluded that much can be done to stop the degradation of these damaged ecosystems and to rehabilitate them. But new techniques must be found to use them on a sustainable basis for long-term economic return and for the well-being of coastal human settlements and a healthy environment.

In 1971, the late Dr. J. Kolek of the Institute of Botany, Bratislava, organized the first International Symposium devoted exclusively to plant roots. At that time, perhaps only a few of the participants, gathered together in Tatranska Lomnica, sensed that a new era of root meetings was beginning. Nevertheless, it is now clear that Dr. Kolek's action, undertaken with his characteristic enormous enthusiasm, was rather pioneering, for it started a series a similar meetings. Moreover, what was rather exceptional at the time was the fact that the meeting was devoted to the functioning of just a single organ, the root. One possible reason for the unexpected success of the original, perhaps naive, idea of a Root Symposium might lie with the fact that plant roots have always been extremely popular as experimental material for cytologists, biochemists and physiologists whishing to probe processes as diverse as cell division and solute transport. Of course, the connection of roots with the rest of the plant is not forgotten either. This wide variety of disciplines is now coupled with the development of increasingly sophisticated experimental techniques to study some of these old problems. These factors undoubtedly contribute to the necessity of continuing the tradition of the root symposia. The common theme of root function gives, in addition, a certain unity to all these diverse activities.

The ecology of potamoplankton has received less attention than lake plankton. These proceedings produce a synthesis of the composition, community structure and dynamics of lotic phytoplankton, which are intuitively submitted to a strong physical control in the flowing environment, perceived as much more disturbed' than a lake, even than a well-mixed shallow one. It turns out that the boundary between the phytoplankton of rivers and lakes is not as clear-cut as was thought. In particular, most contributions provide arguments emphasizing the prominent role of physical control in both aquatic systems, especially due to the steep light gradient resulting from turbulent mixing in a turbid water column. Similarities and differences between potamoplankton and limnoplankton, largely based on the information gathered by the contributors are discussed in the introductory paper by Reynolds et al.

These proceedings deal with the relationship between species composition of freshwater phytoplankton and the trophic gradient. Particular regard is paid to the composite question, what lives where and why? Overview papers report the state of the art and suggest that the trophic spectrum appears to be a probabilistic outcome of several dimensions of variability that impinge upon phytoplankton species selection. Studies on community structure span all latitudes from those of Antarctica to equatorial Brazil, and also include reports on light and nutrient gradients, pH and fish-stock effects on species composition. Seasonal and longterm phytoplankton dynamics in lakes of varying trophic status are also considered. Finally, studies on the taxonomy and autoecology of some groups (e.g. Volvocales, Chrysophytes and Euglenophytes) living at the extremes of the trophic spectrum contribute to our knowledge of this usually neglected phytoplankton. This is the first time that a book covers such a topic, and it will prove an excellent source of information to anyone working on phytoplankton ecology and ecological indicators. Limnologists in general, algologists and the technical staff at water authorities will all benefit by reading this book.

Cultural landscapes are a product ofthe interactions between humans and natural settings. They are landscapes and seascapes that are shaped by human history and land use. Socioeconomic processes especially, but also environmental changes and natural disturbances, are some of the forces that make up landscape dynamics. To understand and manage such complex landscapes, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are necessary, emphasizing the integration of natural and social sciences and considering multiple landscape functions. The spatial patterns of Asian landscapes are strongly related to human activities and their impacts. Anthropogenic patterns and processes have created numerous traditional cultural landscapes throughout the region, and understanding them requires indigenous knowledge. Cultural landscape ecology from a uniquely Asian perspective is explored in this book, as are the management of landscapes and land-use policies. Human-dominated landscapes with long traditions, such as those described herein, provideuseful information for all ecologists, not only in Asia, to better understand the human environmental relationship and landscape sustainability. "

These proceedings of a workshop of the International Association for Phytoplankton Taxonomy and Ecology are directed specifically at the relationship between phytoplankton ecology and the trophic status of water bodies. Contributions address the fact that distinctive assemblages of phytoplankton species are closely associated with particular categories of water bodies. Particular attention is paid to how communities are assembled and to the ways in which environmental constraints filter the successful species. Overview articles are included. The book will be a valuable source of information to limnologists, algologists, and the technical staff of all water suppliers.

This book is based on more than 1000 references to English and French articles produced in the region over many decades. A comprehensive review of the achievements in farming and research in both wet and dryland is given, related to the grasslands of: Eastern Africa, extending from Malawi to Eritrea, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan and eastern Zaire. Sown grasses, within the time-proven system of mixed-farming based on crop-grass rotations. Fodders, e.g. Elephant grass, dryland-Sorghum, lucerne, Leucaena, tropical legumes and hay. /LIST The main objectives of the book are to illustrate the value of East African grasses and fodders for: Livestock: East Africa is the gene-centre of the world's most famous cultivated tropical grasses capable of achieving high animal performance, also without fertilizer. Soil fertility maintenance: local farmers pioneered the practice of grass fallows with Elephant grass to restore soil fertility. This was later extended to sown grasses to accelerate the restoration process. Crop yields are doubled following pasture. Environmental protection: priority in natural grassland is to prevent deterioration. In crop-pasture rotations grasses are effective in trapping rainfall and in reducing erosion by improved soil structure. Topics discussed include animal manure versus fertilizer; zero versus direct grazing; fodder crops (annual and perennial) versus grass conservation; seed production and plant breeding. The main species in cultivation are described in detail.

This volume gives an insight into what a group of contemporary plankton biologists think about the utility, virtues, strengths and theoretical and practical weaknesses of J.H. Connell's Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis within the context of phytoplankton ecology. The sequence of papers in this volume moves from particular case studies to more general and finally theoretical approaches.

Saline land is a resource capable of significant production. Recent advances in research in breeding for salt tolerance in wheat, biotechnology in rice, and selection and rehabilitation of salt-tolerant plants are of economic importance in arid/saline conditions.

This book gives some practical approaches for saline agriculture and afforestation, and describes examples of cultivating salt-tolerant/halophytic plants for commercial interest on salt-affected land or with highly salinized water in Australia, China, Central Asia, Egypt, Pakistan, and Russia. It also explores the possibilities of arid/saline agriculture and afforestation in UAE.

Seagrasses are unique plants; the only group of flowering plants to recolonise the sea. They occur on every continental margin, except Antarctica, and form ecosystems which have important roles in fisheries, fish nursery grounds, prawn fisheries, habitat diversity and sediment stabilisation. Over the last two decades there has been an explosion of research and information on all aspects of seagrass biology. However the compilation of all this work into one book has not been attempted previously. In this book experts in 26 areas of seagrass biology present their work in chapters which are state-of the-art and designed to be useful to students and researchers alike. The book not only focuses on what has been discovered but what exciting areas are left to discover. The book is divided into sections on taxonomy, anatomy, reproduction, ecology, physiology, fisheries, management, conservation and landscape ecology. It is destined to become the chosen text on seagrasses for any marine biology course."

Global warming is expected to change fire regimes, likely increasing the severity and extent of wildfires in many ecosystems around the world. What will be the landscape-scale effects of these altered fire regimes? Within what theoretical contexts can we accurately assess these effects? We explore the possible effects of altered fire regimes on landscape patch dynamics, dominant species (tree, shrub, or herbaceous) and succession, sensitive and invasive plant and animal species and communities, and ecosystem function. Ultimately, we must consider the human dimension: what are the policy and management implications of increased fire disturbance, and what are the implications for human communities?

Southeast Asia constitutes one of the world's most extended rainforest regions. It is characterized by a high degree of biodiversity and contains a large variety of endemic species. Moreover, these forests provide a number of important and sin gular ecosystem services, like erosion protection and provision of high quality wa ter, which cannot be replaced by alternative ecosystems. However, various forms of encroachment, mostly those made by human interventions, seriously threaten the continuance of rainforests in this area. There is ample evidence that the rainforest resources, apart from large scale commercial logging, are exposed to danger particularly from its margin areas. These areas, which are characterized by intensive man-nature interaction, have been identified as extremely fragile systems. The dynamic equilibrium that bal ances human needs and interventions on the one hand, and natural regeneration capacity on the other, is at stake. The decrease of rainforest resources is, to a sub stantial degree, connected with the destabilization of these systems. Accordingly, the search for measures and processes, which prevent destabilization and promote stability is regarded as imperative. This refers to both the human and the natural part of the forest margin ecosystem."

Atmospheric abudance of trace gases since the pre-industrial time has forced the earth's climate to change, threatening food security. Exchange of biogenic trace gases between the atmosphere and the biosphere is directly or indirectly influenced by the plants. This volume contains the latest findings on the correlation between the climate change and biogenic gas emission, plant response to elevated levels of carbon dioxide, temperature, ozone and UV-B in combination and alone, regulatory mechanism of methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia emission and their mitigating options. Ecologists, atmospheric scientists, plant physiologists, research scholars, teachers and post-graduate students will benefit from this book.

Nouragues is a tropical forest research station in French Guiana. It was established in 1986 for research on natural mechanisms of forest regeneration. Since then a lot of research has been done on this and related topics. This book provides an overview of the main research results, and focuses on plant communities, vertebrate communities and evolutionary ecology, frugivory and seed dispersal, and forest dynamics and recruitment. The appendices give (annoted) checklists of plants, birds, mammals, herpetofauna and fishes found in the same area.

It was in late 2002 that the idea of preparing a collection of multi-authored chapters on different aspects of ag- st forestry as a compendium for the 1 World Congress of Agroforestry, June 2004, was tossed around. With the approval of the idea by the Congress Organizing Committee, serious efforts to make it a reality got under way in early 2003. The rigorously peer-reviewed and edited manuscripts were submitted to the publisher in December 2003. Considering the many differentindividualsinvolved in the task as authors and manuscriptreviewers, we feel quite pleased that the task could be accomplished within this timeframe. We are pleased also about the contents on several counts. First of all, the tropical-temperate mix of topics is a rare feature of a publication of this nature. In spite of the scienti?c commonalities between tropical and temperate practices of agroforestry, the differences between them are so enormous that it is often impossible to mesh them together in one publication. Secondly, several of the chapters are on topics that have not been discussed or described much in agroforestryliterature. A third feature is that some of the authors, though well known in their own disciplinary areas, are somewhat new to agroforestry; the perceptions and outlooks of these scholars who are relatively unin?uenced by the past happenings in agroforestry gives a whole new dimension to agroforestry and broadensthescopeofthesubject. Finally, ratherthanjustreviewingandsummarizingpastwork, mostchapterstake the extra effort in attempting to outline the next steps

New demands on landscapes and natural resources call for multifunctional approaches to land development. Tools are required to identify the effects of land management on landscape sustainability and to support the decision-making process on the multipurpose utilisation of landscape resources. Scientists from across Europe installed the "Landscape Tomorrow" network to be prepared for new challenges in research to sustainable land development in an international perspective. This publication analyses general principles of landscape multifunctionality, develops methods to assess the sustainability of agricultural and forestry land management and identifies strategies of sustainable land management. Moreover, it contributes to the scientific basis for future land development strategies and helps support land use decision-making on the political, planning and management level.

Photosynthesis and the Environment examines how photosynthesis may be influenced by environmental changes. Structural and functional aspects of the photosynthetic apparatus are examined in the context of responses to environmental stimuli; particular attention being given to the processing of light energy by thylakoids, metabolic regulation, gas exchange and source-sink relations. The roles of developmental and genetic responses in determining photosynthetic performance are also considered. The complexity of the responses to environmental change is demonstrated by detailed analyses of the effects of specific environmental variables (light, temperature, water, CO2, ozone and UV-B) on photosynthetic performance. Where appropriate attention is given to recent developments in the techniques used for studying photosynthetic activities.

The book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and a wide range of scientists with research interests in environmental effects on photosynthesis and plant productivity.

There are some good reasons to start a global study of beech forests. One reason may be the importance of beech for man. In many places and in many ages, beech has played an important role in people's lives (Table 1). Already in old ages beech was useful for nuts, fuelwood and bokiz, beechwood tablets carved with runes, from which probably our word 'book' is derived. Beech still plays an important role in people's lives. Another reason for a global study of beech forests is that it lifts us above the detailed but fragmented image of a local study. My study of beech forests started out of love for these often beautiful forests, and, gradually, a small project grew into a world wide study. Table 1. Beech names. Scientific name Name Language Meaning - origin beech English bhagos (Indo-European) Fagus sylvatica do Buche, Rotbuche Gennan beuk do Dutch do bok Swedish do bog Danish do Mtre, fayard French hetre = hester (Gennanic), indicating young beeches do haya Spanish do faig Cathalan do faggio Italian do fagus Latin phagos = glutton (Greek), referring to edible nuts do fagul Romanian do buk Czech F. sylvatica subsp. orientalis kayin Turkish Fagus crenata buna Japanese unknown do sobaguri Japanese noodle chestnut (old), indicating hairy cupule penduncles F agus japonica inubuna Japanese inferior beech Fagus spp."

The inspiration for this book came from our ten years of journeys and wanderings through the varied landscapes of Arabia, and in particular through those of its hospitable southeastern corner, Oman. We owe a particular debt to Sultan Qaboos University, which during this time has provided us with both a stimulating working environment and a home. Transliteration of Arabic place and other names into English script is a task fraught with difficulties. We have followed 'accepted' spellings wherever these were not contrary to our common sense, and in other cases we have rendered names into Roman English script using phonetic spellings. Our main task in this respect was to ensure conformity between the fIfteen contributing authors. Diacritical signs have mostly been avoided, since their use is neither widely followed nor readily understood. Arabic words which have been commonly taken into the English language, such as 'sabkha' for a salt flat and 'wadi' for a valley with a seasonal watercourse, are not italicised in usage. However, other Arabic terms which are occasionally used in English but not as widely known, such as harrah for a basaltic lava fIeld and hima for a traditional grazing reserve, are italicised throughout the text.

This book consists of papers presented at a symposium "PLANT-INDUCED SOIL CHANGES: PROCESSES AND FEEDBACKS" that was held during the American Society of Agronomy-Soil Science Society of America Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, November 4-8, 1996. The papers were also pub of Biogeochemistry (Vol. 42, nos. 1 and 2, 1998). The lished in a special issue symposium was built on the growing realisation that plant-induced changes in soil feed back in various ways to natural vegetations, giving rise to a plethora of plant-soil interactions beyond the classical one-way cause-and-effect pathways plant-to-soil and soil-to-plant. The aim of this special issue is not in the first place to present new research findings, but to review and discuss the more holistic aspects of plant-soil interactions, providing more room for speculation than do most collections of research papers. After a general introduction which emphasises ecological and evolutionary aspects of plant-soil interac ions (van Breemen and Finzi), three papers deal with particular effects of plants on soil properties: mineralogy (Kelly et al. ), soil structure (Angers and Caron) and soil fertility (Berendse). Next, five papers take up plant-soil interactions in specific biomes: forests (Binkley and Giardina; Gobran et al. ), grasslands (Burke et al.; Epstein et al. ) and deserts (Schlesinger and Pilmanis). Two papers discuss plant-soil interactions via effects of differences in litter quality in specific ecosystems: California's pygmy forest (Northup et al. ) and the Alaskan Taiga (Schimel et al. )."

The research in this book covers papers on a great number of research projects on the responses of plants and crops of natural terrestrial ecosystems, of agro-ecosystems, and of aquatic ecosystems, to enhanced solar UV-B as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion. Some introductory chapters deal with general aspects of how plants respond to UV-B radiation. Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) is a primary energy resource for terrestrial plants, necessary for plant growth. Inevitably terrestrial plants absorb UV-B when exposed to solar radiation. The spectral balance between PAR and UV-B is discussed in several chapters. The responses of plants and ecosystems from the Antarctic and Arctic to enhanced solar UV-B radiation as a consequence of the hole in the ozone layer are considered in some detail. In addition the papers in the book discuss the problem of how responses of plants to UV-B radiation interact with other environmental factors. The book is of great importance for those who are involved in global change topics: biologists, ecologists, earth scientists, agronomists, environmental scientists, and those who develop environmental policy.

Desertification has occurred worldwide. The biophysical and socio-economic complexity of this phenomenon has challenged our ability to categorize, inventory, monitor and repair the condition of degraded lands. One of the most important distinctions to be made in relation to land degradation is between cultivated land used for annual crop production and rangelands'. Grazing by free-roaming livestock is the traditional primary use of the world's rangelands. However, there is growing recognition of the importance of these vast acreages for wildlife habitat, hydrology and ground water recharge, recreation and aesthetics. This text focuses on the desertification of rangelands and explores processes, problems and solutions. Chapters in the first section evaluate interactions between natural' and human-induced disturbance regimes, thresholds, and non-linear change with respect to vegetation, hydrology, nutrients and erosion. Chapters in the second section examine socio-economic constraints and approaches for preventing and reversing degradation. The book provides a contemporary, process-oriented perspective on rangeland degradation of value to students, policy-makers and professionals alike.