Biodiversity: An Ecological Perspective

✍ Scribed by Edward O. Wilson (auth.), Takuya Abe, Simon A. Levin, Masahiko Higashi (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 290
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Despite acknowledgment that loss of living diversity is an international biological crisis, the ecological causes and consequences of extinction have not yet been widely addressed. In honor of Edward O. Wilson, winner of the 1993 International Prize for Biology, an international group of distinguished biologists bring ecological, evolutionary, and management perspectives to the issue of biodiversity. The roles of ecosystem processes, community structure and population dynamics are considered in this book. The goal, as Wilson writes in his introduction, is "to assemble concepts that unite the disciplines of systematics and ecology, and in so doing to create a sound scientific basis for the future management of biodiversity."

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xii
Introduction....Pages 1-5
Front Matter....Pages 7-7
Biogeographic Patterns of Avian Diversity in Australia....Pages 9-20
The Role of Architecture in Enhancing Plant Species Diversity....Pages 21-33
Species Coexistence and Abundance:Patterns and Processes....Pages 35-55
Front Matter....Pages 57-57
Extinction and the Evolutionary Process....Pages 59-73
Diversity and Evolution of Symbiotic Interactions....Pages 75-82
Global Diversification of Termites Driven by the Evolution of Symbiosis and Sociality....Pages 83-112
Front Matter....Pages 113-113
Plant-Mediated Interactions Between Herbivorous Insects....Pages 115-130
Herbivore-Induced Plant Volatiles with Multifunctional Effects in Ecosystems: A Complex Pattern of Biotic Interactions....Pages 131-145
How a Butterfly Copes with the Problem of Biological Diversity....Pages 147-163
Front Matter....Pages 165-165
Successional Development, Energetics and Diversity in Planktonic Communities....Pages 167-202
Food Web Structure and Biodiversity in Lake Ecosystems....Pages 203-213
The Role of Species in Ecosystems: Aspects of Ecological Complexity and Biological Diversity....Pages 215-228
Front Matter....Pages 229-229
Sources and Management of Biodiversity in the Russian Far East....Pages 231-247
Singapore: A Case-Study for Tropical Rain Forest Fragmentation and Biodiversity Loss....Pages 249-257
Management of Biodiversity in Aquatic Ecosystems: Dynamic Aspects of Habitat Complexity in Stream Ecosystems....Pages 259-275
Biodiversity: Interfacing Populations and Ecosystems....Pages 277-288
Back Matter....Pages 289-294

✦ Subjects

Ecology; Biodiversity; Conservation Biology/Ecology; Nature Conservation; Geoecology/Natural Processes