The Biology of Disturbed Habitats

Lawrence R Walker author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:1st Dec '11

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The Biology of Disturbed Habitats cover

This book provides the first global synthesis of the biology of disturbed habitats and offers readers both the conceptual underpinnings and practical advice required to comprehend and address the unprecedented environmental challenges facing humans. Every habitat on earth has been impacted by natural disturbances such as volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, fires, floods, and droughts. Humans have contributed many additional disturbances such as mining, urbanization, forestry, agriculture, fishing, and recreation. These anthropogenic disturbances modify and often exacerbate the effects of the natural disturbances. Together, they result in the abrupt loss of biomass or ecosystem structure and function to create denuded surfaces where novel mixtures of native and non-native microbes, plants, and animals establish, grow, and die. The Biology of Disturbed Habitats examines both natural and anthropogenic disturbances in aquatic and terrestrial habitats. It explores how nutrients and productivity are altered in the disturbed habitats, the effects of disturbance on biodiversity, and the spatial and temporal dynamics of organisms that colonize disturbed habitats. This book also addresses how to manage disturbances through appropriate conservation and restoration measures, and discusses how climate change and overpopulation now represent the most challenging disturbances at a global scale.

Walker does an excellent job bringing together the many elements of modern disturbance ecology. * Bulletin of the British Ecological Society *
In The Biology of Disturbed Habitats, readers will find a pithy but well-balanced review of the relevant research on ecological theory * Lee E. Frelich, BioScience *

ISBN: 9780199575305

Dimensions: 233mm x 156mm x 19mm

Weight: 588g

334 pages