Marine Biodiversity : Patterns and Processes, Assessment, Threats, Management and Conservation
Understanding the functioning of Marine Ecosystems is the first step to measure and predict the influence of Man, and to find solutions for the enormous array of problems we face today. This volume is organised according to the four subthemes of the symposium and to issues commonly perceived as relevant by scientists concerned with the study, protection and management of Marine Biodiversity: patterns and processes, assessment, threats and management and conservation.
Mangroves and Halophytes : Restoration and Utilisation
Focusing on Venezuela and Mexico, this edited volume from the International Society of Halophyte Utilisation (ISHU) explores the environmental issues facing South and Central America's coastal ecosystems, and discusses the uses of mangrove species and other halophytes in addressing issues of both coastal pollution and upland soil salinisation. The book draws on expertise from Europe and South America to present a series of case studies that detail Venezuela’s saline ecosystems and examine the economic potential of mangrove restoration and halophyte production. It includes cutting-edge research into the establishment of new mangrove stands which could serve as prototypes for the sustainable use of halophytes, including Chenopodium quinoa and Tamarix aphylla. Moreover, the detailed examples from Venezuela and other Caribbean countries provide useful models for comparison with halophyte utilisation in other parts of the world – especially the Mediterranean region, where much of the earlier research of the ISHU had been conducted.
Low-Dose Radiation Effects on Animals and Ecosystems : Long-Term Study on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident
Brings together the works of radiation biologists and ecologists to provide reliable radioecology data and gives insight into future radioprotection. The book examines the environmental pollution and radiation exposure, and contains valuable data from abandoned livestock in the ex-evacuation zone and from wild animals including invertebrates and vertebrates, aqueous and terrestrial animals, and plants that are subjected to long-term exposure in the area still affected by radiation. It also analyzes dose evaluation, and offers new perspectives gained from the accident, as well as an overview for future studies to promote radioprotection of humans and the ecosystem.
Long-Term Ecosystem Changes in Riparian Forests
Presents and analyzes the results of more than 30 years of long-term ecological research in riparian forest ecosystems with the aim of casting light on changes in the dynamics of riparian forests over time.
Living Rivers : Trends and Challenges in Science and Management
All over the world, sustainable river basin management is a leading principle of policy plans and legal instruments for water management (e.g. the European Water Framework Directive). The evidence, however, to underpin the full scope of sustainability is rather scanty. In this book an integrative perspective on trends and challenges in river science and management is demonstrated. The three pillars underneath sustainable water management, ecology, economy and sociology, are elaborated by experts in their fields. A number of papers integrate the current knowledge on the structure, functioning and management of ‘living rivers’. The book includes data and experiences concerning the rivers Allier, Meuse, Rhine, Sava and Tagliamento in Europe and the river Illinois in the USA. Sustainable river basin management asks for un-orthodox rehabilitation programmes and ecosystem based and transboundary management approaches.
Life in Extreme Environments
Investigating life processes under extreme conditions can also bring clues for understanding and predicting ecosystems' responses to global changes. Furthermore, this area of research has a wide application potential in the fields of (bio)technoloty, chemical industry, pharmaceutics, biomedicine or cosmetics.
Life as We Know It
Life As we Know It ["LAKI"] 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 it is hard to define Life, one can, however, characterize it and describe its features. Topics treated are categories of bacteria, algae and fungi, conscience, philosophy, theology, aesthetics, appearance of sport and life destiny, life after clinical death, and thoughts of the world to come ("Olam Haba"). The various chapters have been written so that they are accessible to all - from the avid lay reader to the specialist – and make available multidisciplinary sources of information about Life. This volume will interest open minded scholars, students at all levels of general sciences, natural and Life science, researchers of philosophy, theology, history of Life, astrobiology, and those who wish to widen their knowledge about "who are we in the universe".
Lake Taihu, China : Dynamics and Environmental Change
There are many shallow lakes in the world. Many of them play an important socio-economic role as contributors to the drinking water supply, in flood attenuation, fisheries and recreation activities. Because of the current anthropogenic changes in the environment, such lakes rapidly respond to eutrophication and swamping. It is often hard to address these issues because many changes in the ecosystems of shallow lakes are associated with little studied physical processes. This interaction between the aquatic biota and the physical and chemical environment increases the complexity of shallow lake ecosystems. Lake Taihu, located in the delta of Yangtze River, is a typical large, shallow eutrophic lake with area of 2338 km2 and maximum depth of less than 3m . This book provides basic data on various aspects of this lake and summarizes research work on the interaction between its ecology and physical limnology. It will be a reference for teachers and students of freshwater ecology and biology, the aquatic environment in general, and, most strikingly, for all those interested in physical limnology.
Complexity in landscape ecology
Interactions matter. To understand the distributions of plants and animals in a landscape you need to understand how they interact with each other, and with their environment. The resulting networks of interactions make ecosystems highly complex. Recent research on complexity and artificial life provides many new insights about patterns and processes in landscapes and ecosystems. This book provides the first overview of that work for general readers. It covers such topics as connectivity, criticality, feedback, and networks, as well as their impact on the stability and predictability of ecosystem dynamics. With over 60 years of research experience of both ecology and complexity, the authors are uniquely qualified to provide a new perspective on traditional ecology.
Chemical Ecology : From Gene to Ecosystem
This book provides an overview of chemical ecology related to different ecosystems. It offers an outlook at novel directions that can be taken in chemical ecology through a molecular-ecological or eco-genomic approach. The book addresses aboveground and belowground terrestrial systems as well as aquatic systems, and the organisms involved are micro- and macro-organisms, such as plants, arthropods and mammals.
Changing Land Use Patterns in the Coastal Zone : Managing Environmental Quality in Rapidly Developing Regions
Coastal ecosystems make up some of the most important, yet most endangered, regions in the world. The protection of the unique processes that take place in these ecosystems requires that partnerships be formed among ecologists, resource managers, and planners. Experienced in the challenges of coastal system analysis, the contributors to this book provide multidisciplinary guidance on the assessment and management of environmental impacts caused by development. Each chapter examines an issue important to these fragile ecosystems, first presenting a non-technical summary of the issue and a review of the current state of the knowledge, then following with data and a more detailed consideration of the topic.
Carbon and nitrogen in the terrestrial environment
Carbon and Nitrogen in the Terrestrial Environment is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary description of C and N fluxes between the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere; issues related to C and N management in different ecosystems and their implications for the environment and global climate change; and the approaches to mitigate emission of greenhouse gases.Drawing upon the most up-to-date books, journals, bulletins, reports, symposia proceedings and internet sources documenting interrelationships between different aspects of C and N cycling in the terrestrial environment, Carbon and Nitrogen in the Terrestrial Environment fills the gap left by most of the currently available books on C and N cycling. They either deal with a single element of an ecosystem, or are related to one or a few selected aspects like soil organic matter (SOM) and agricultural or forest management, emission of greenhouse gases, global climate change or modeling of SOM dynamics.
Cadmium toxicity : challenges and solutions
Offers a comprehensive collection of review and case chapters that cover cadmium toxicity and remediation. It covers sources of cadmium contamination, its impact on human health, and prospective remediation strategies, taking a multi-disciplinary approach a focus on application of recent advanced biological technology. The chapters here bring together a diverse group of environmental science, sustainability and health researchers to address the challenges caused by cadmium contamination, explaining the routes of exposure to environmental cadmium, how cadmium is transported in ecosystems, and the health risks linked to cadmium exposure in food and the environment.
By-catch Reduction in the Worlds Fisheries
This book comes after several decades of outstanding and successful research that has helped ameliorate some of the most important and controversial fisheries issues in the world – those associated with the unwanted wastage of fish from by-catch and discarding. The 8 chapters encompass contributions from 27 of the world’s leading experts in by-catch reduction. They take the reader through most aspects of the field at a variety of scales and viewpoints. They examine the methodologies used to develop by-catch reduction techniques and provide new avenues for assisting and broadening such work. Case studies are provided that encompass most of the world’s fishing techniques and regions.
Boreal Peatland Ecosystems
This volume adopts an ecosystems approach to understanding the world's boreal peatlands. It focuses on biogeochemical patterns and processes, production, decomposition, and peat accumulation, and provides additional information on animal and fungal diversity. A recurring theme is the legacy of boreal peatlands as impressive accumulators of carbon as peat over millennia. This carbon legacy is under threat from a wide diversity of disturbances, including wildfire, ongoing climate change, the changing chemistry of atmospheric deposition, and continuing resource exploitation. The volume is of inte.
Biological Invasions in South Africa
This book presents a comprehensive account of all aspects of biological invasions in South Africa, where research has been conducted over more than three decades, and where bold initiatives have been implemented in attempts to control invasions and to reduce their ecological, economic and social effects.
Biological Invasions in New Zealand
Man’s recent colonization of New Zealand has dramatically altered the resident biota and resulted in the introduction of numerous alien organisms to these once remote islands. In reverse, there is increasing evidence of a lesser known export of species to other regions of the world. This volume presents an in-depth review of the level and rate of such invasions, and investigates what controls the success of invaders and the consequences for ecosystems both on land and offshore. It provides invasion biologists everywhere with tests of current theories about those factors leading to the success of invaders as well as evaluating principles for understanding the nature of their impacts that form a solid basis for the effective management of biological invasions worldwide.
Biological Invasions Belowground : Earthworms as Invasive Species
he most conspicuous biological invasions in terrestrial ecosystems have been by exotic plants, insects and vertebrates. Less conspicuous but possibly of equal importance are invasions by soil invertebrates, which are occurring literally beneath our feet. Familiar examples include the South American fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) which has invaded North America and Australia, and the New Zealand flatworm (Arthurdendyus triangulatus) which has become wide-spread in the United Kingdom; both have caused considerable ecological and economic damage. There is now evidence that exotic earthworm invasions are increasing world-wide and may be having significant impacts on soil processes and plant communities in some regions. Much remains to be learned about these ‘cryptic’ biological invasions. The papers in this book are based on efforts by an international group of soil ecologists to assess the biological and ecological mechanisms of earthworm invasions, their geographic extent and impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, and possible means by which earthworm invasions might be mitigated.
Biodiversity of angola : Science & conservation : A modern synthesis
The book identifies Angola as one of the most biologically diverse countries in Africa, but notes that its fauna, flora, habitats and the processes that drive the dynamics of its ecosystems.
Arthropod Diversity and Conservation
Despite their enormous bulk and complexity of architecture, plants make up only around a quarter of a million of the 8 million or so species on Earth. The major components of biodiversity, instead, are the smaller, largely unseen, silent majority of invertebrates – most of which are arthropods. Vertebrates, a mere blip on the biotic horizon, are elevated in importance in the bigger scheme of things only by the human psyche. This collection of more than 30 peer-reviewed papers focuses on the diversity and conservation of arthropods, whose species inhabit virtually every recess and plane – and feature somewhere in virtually every food web – on the planet. Highlighting issues ranging from large-scale disturbance to local management, and from spatial heterogeneity to temporal patterns, these papers reflect some of the most exciting new research taking place today – and in some of the most biodiverse corners of the planet.



















