Siegmar-W Breckle Editor & Author

Siegmar-W. Breckle Professor and Head of the Department of Ecology at the University of Bielefeld for many years. He continued the multi-volume work "Ecology of the Earth" by Heinrich Walter, published numerous articles and books on the ecology of many regions, especially the drylands combined with countless study trips around the globe. His research in deserts, tropics and high mountains is the basis for the corresponding chapters in this book.

M. Daud Rafiqpoor,long-time research associate of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz and coordinator of two ecologically oriented long-term projects of this academy ("Three-dimensional Landscape Division of the Tropics and Subtropics" and "Biodiversity in Change"). Numerous study trips in almost all tropical and subtropical mountains of the world. Publication of many papers and books on the geography and ecology of tropical and subtropical high mountains and Afghanistan.