The earth's landscapes are being increasingly impacted by the activities of man. Unfortunately, we do not have a full understanding of the consequences of these disturbances on the earth's productive capacity. This problem was addressed by a group of French and U.S. ecologists who are specialists at levels of integration extending from genetics to the biosphere at a meeting at Stanford, California, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. With a few important exceptions it was found at this meeting that most man-induced disturbances of ecosystems can be viewed as large scale patterns of disturbances that have occurred, generally on a small scale, in ecosystems through evolutionary time. Man has induced dramatic large-scale changes in the environment which must be viewed at the biosphere level. Acid deposition and CO increase are two 2 examples of the consequences of man's increased utilization of fossil fuels. It is a matter of considerable concern that we cannot yet fully predict the ecological consequences of these environmental changes. Such problems must be addressed at the international level, yet substantive mechanisms to do this are not available."

The information presented in this book is the result of combined research efforts of scientists at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, the Institute of Northern Forestry, USDA Forest Service, and the Systems Ecology Research Group, San Diego State University. The objective of the volume is to present a synthetic overview of structure and function of taiga forest ecosystems in interior Alaska. The data base for this work has appeared in earlier published articles including the special issue of the Canadian Journal of Forest Research Volume 13:5 (1983). Stimulus for this book was a conference held in Fairbanks from June 10-14, 1983. The papers presented at the conference were fore runners of the chapters in this book. We invited 19 scientists from North America and England to critique our research and synthesis efforts. Six of these people were asked to write introductory chapters for each section of the book. Formal presentation sessions, combined with field trips to research sites, introduced the invitees to the primary and secondary successional ecosystems with which we were dealing. A major wildfire, only 24 km from the University campus, was contained the week prior to the conference and one field trip provided graphic evidence of fire impact in subarctic forests. The conference conveners regretted that it was not possible to host a similar meeting during synthesis efforts in mid-January."