From Plant Traits to Vegetation Structure


Book Description

Explains how natural selection, combined with methods in statistical physics, can predict and explain the assembly of ecological communities.




From Plant Traits to Vegetation Structure


Book Description

Explains how natural selection, combined with methods in statistical physics, can predict and explain the assembly of ecological communities.




Plant Functional Diversity


Book Description

Biological diversity, the variety of living organisms on Earth, is traditionally viewed as the diversity of taxa, and species in particular. However, other facets of diversity also need to be considered for a comprehensive understanding of evolutionary and ecological processes. This novel book demonstrates the advantages of adopting a functional approach to diversity in order to improve our understanding of the functioning of ecological systems and theircomponents. The focus is on plants, which are major components of these systems, and for which the functional approach has led to major scientific advances over the last 20 years. PlantFunctional Diversity presents the rationale for a trait-based approach to functional diversity in the context of comparative plant ecology and agroecology. It demonstrates how this approach can be used to address a number of highly debated questions in plant ecology pertaining to plant responses to their environment, controls on plant community structure, ecosystem properties, and the services these deliver to human societies. This research level text will be of particular relevance and use tograduate students and professional researchers in plant ecology, agricultural sciences and conservation biology.




Plant Form and Vegetation Structure


Book Description

Populationen und ihre Dynamik, Formationen, Morphologie.




Plant Strategies and the Dynamics and Structure of Plant Communities. (MPB-26), Volume 26


Book Description

Although ecologists have long considered morphology and life history to be important determinants of the distribution, abundance, and dynamics of plants in nature, this book contains the first theory to predict explicitly both the evolution of plant traits and the effects of these traits on plant community structure and dynamics. David Tilman focuses on the universal requirement of terrestrial plants for both below-ground and above-ground resources. The physical separation of these resources means that plants face an unavoidable tradeoff. To obtain a higher proportion of one resource, a plant must allocate more of its growth to the structures involved in its acquisition, and thus necessarily obtain a lower proportion of another resource. Professor Tilman presents a simple theory that includes this constraint and tradeoff, and uses the theory to explore the evolution of plant life histories and morphologies along productivity and disturbance gradients. The book shows that relative growth rate, which is predicted to be strongly influenced by a plant's proportional allocation to leaves, is a major determinant of the transient dynamics of competition. These dynamics may explain the differences between successions on poor versus rich soils and suggest that most field experiments performed to date have been of too short a duration to allow unambiguous interpretation of their results.




Plant Strategies, Vegetation Processes, and Ecosystem Properties


Book Description

Plant Strategies, Vegetation Processes, and Ecosystem Properties, Second Edition, is a thoroughly updated and comprehensive new edition of the very successful Plant Strategies and Vegetative Processes, which controversially proposed the existence of widely-recurring plant functional types with predictable relationships to vegetation structure and dynamics. This second edition uses evidence from many parts of the world to re-examine these concepts in the light of the enormous expansion in the literature. Features include: * A new section covering all aspects of ecosystem properties * New chapters on Assembling of Communities Rarification and Extinction Colonisation and Invasion * Principles and methodologies of a range of international tests including case study examples * Chapter summaries for a quick reference guide * Index of species names Written in a very readable style, this book is an invaluable reference source for researchers in the areas of plant, animal, and community ecology, conservation and land management. 'Written by one of the foremost authorities in the field, summarising over 35 years of research. A book all plant ecologists will want to read.' - Jonathan Silvertown, Department of Biological Sciences, The Open University, UK. 'The coverage is outstanding and comprehensive.' - Simon A. Levin, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, USA




Vegetation Ecology


Book Description

Additional resources for this book can be found at: www.wiley.com/go/vandermaarelfranklin/vegetationecology. Vegetation Ecology, 2nd Edition is a comprehensive, integrated account of plant communities and their environments. Written by leading experts in their field from four continents, the second edition of this book: covers the composition, structure, ecology, dynamics, diversity, biotic interactions and distribution of plant communities, with an emphasis on functional adaptations; reviews modern developments in vegetation ecology in a historical perspective; presents a coherent view on vegetation ecology while integrating population ecology, dispersal biology, soil biology, ecosystem ecology and global change studies; tackles applied aspects of vegetation ecology, including management of communities and invasive species; includes new chapters addressing the classification and mapping of vegetation, and the significance of plant functional types Vegetation Ecology, 2nd Edition is aimed at advanced undergraduates, graduates and researchers and teachers in plant ecology, geography, forestry and nature conservation. Vegetation Ecology takes an integrated, multidisciplinary approach and will be welcomed as an essential reference for plant ecologists the world over.




Handbook of Trait-Based Ecology


Book Description

Trait-based ecology is rapidly expanding. This comprehensive and accessible guide covers the main concepts and tools in functional ecology.




Competition and Coexistence


Book Description

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.




Canopy Photosynthesis: From Basics to Applications


Book Description

The last 30 years has seen the development of increasingly sophisticated models that quantify canopy carbon exchange. These models are now essential parts of larger models for prediction and simulation of crop production, climate change, and regional and global carbon dynamics. There is thus an urgent need for increasing expertise in developing, use and understanding of these models. This in turn calls for an advanced, yet easily accessible textbook that summarizes the “canopy science” and introduces the present and the future scientists to the theoretical background of the current canopy models. This book presents current knowledge of functioning of plant canopies, models and strategies employed to simulate canopy function, and the significance of canopy architecture, physiology and dynamics in ecosystems, landscape and biosphere.