Bücher der Reihe Advances in Vegetation Science

This book brings together, for the first time, information on various wetland classification systems and wetland inventories from around the world, outlining regional, national and local wetland classifications developed in Africa, Australia, Canada, China, Europe, India, South America and the USA. Oriented towards the conservation and management of wetlands, these existing national and regional classification systems have been useful in providing an essential base for the development of an international system. The volume also reviews various attempts at drawing up an inventory of wetlands in different parts of the world, ranging from field and literature surveys to highly sophisticated efforts using aerial photography and satellite imaging. Audience: Workers in wetland ecology, especially those working on classification, inventory, conservation, or management of wetlands at the local, national, regional or international levels.

The research in this book covers papers on a great number of research projects on the responses of plants and crops of natural terrestrial ecosystems, of agro-ecosystems, and of aquatic ecosystems, to enhanced solar UV-B as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion. Some introductory chapters deal with general aspects of how plants respond to UV-B radiation. Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) is a primary energy resource for terrestrial plants, necessary for plant growth. Inevitably terrestrial plants absorb UV-B when exposed to solar radiation. The spectral balance between PAR and UV-B is discussed in several chapters. The responses of plants and ecosystems from the Antarctic and Arctic to enhanced solar UV-B radiation as a consequence of the hole in the ozone layer are considered in some detail. In addition the papers in the book discuss the problem of how responses of plants to UV-B radiation interact with other environmental factors. The book is of great importance for those who are involved in global change topics: biologists, ecologists, earth scientists, agronomists, environmental scientists, and those who develop environmental policy.

Proceedings of part of the Symposium `Numerical Syntaxonomy and Syndynamics' held in Unovce near Galanta, Slovakia, May 18-23, 1987

An international workshop on `CO2 and Biosphere' was held in Wageningen, the Netherlands on 15-19 November 1991 as part of the activities of the CO2 Commission of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research: this volume includes 32 papers presented at the workshop. The CO2 Commission stimulates and coordinates a broad range of research projects related to the greenhouse effect. This is reflected in the scope of papers presented, ranging from detailed analyses of ecological and physiological effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment to biosphere-atmosphere aspects, such as regional evaporation, energy balance and ecosystem responses. Relevant directions for future research are indicated by presentations on carbon fluxes in the soil, secondary plant metabolism and plant-insect interactions.

Eddy V AN DER MAAREL This volume is the first of two volumes covering the Sym- computer programmes for the rapid clustering and ordina- posium 'Advances in vegetation science', which was held at tion of very large sets of reI eves and for (subsequent) table Nijmegen, The Netherlands, from 15-19 May 1979. This rearrangement (this volume as well as the book Data- symposium was organized on behalf of the Working Group Processing in Phytosociology contain various new pro- for Data-Processing of the International Society for Vege- grams). What we do not have is a manual in which the tation Science. After this group held its final meeting two apparently successful methods are compared and applied years earlier it decided to continue its activities, but within a to some data-sets. H. Lieth, editor-in-chief of a new Junk wider scope. Most members of the Group felt that the series 'Tasks for vegetation science' already suggested to original aim, i. e. the introduction of data-processing and produce such a manual in this series. multivariate methods for use in the systematic description The present volume contains the texts of the lectures and of plant communities, was more or less fulfilled. The book most of the poster demonstrations of the first three sessions Data -Processing in Phytosociology, largely based on papers of the Symposium, dealing with classification and ordina- in Vegetatio, edited by E. van der Maarel, L. Orloci & S.

(RANKIN) of equivocation information (1-:) and interaction information (M). The method is described in the present paper for I: and in a previous paper (Orloci, 1976) for M. The results presented in this paper suggest that for Species Rank order Information Percentage of total* species to be weighted according to their suitability to I* M I M r M characterize isolated groups of releves in a phytosociolo- 5 7 54.15 2.31 17.97 0.82 gical table, the equivocation information may serve as a 9 5 49.86 23.19 16.55 8.22 3 3 9 47.79 0.56 15.86 0.20 suitable weight. The appropriate formulations are derived 6 4 8 36.18 1.18 12.01 0.42 4 5 3 24.36 59.34 8.09 21.03 and computed for some data from a salt marsh community. 8 6 4 24.25 39.04 8.05 13.84 10 7 I 21.96 71.17 7.29 25.23 7 8 2 18.67 69.01 6.20 24.46 9 10 18.40 6.11 10 6 5.64 16.31 1.87 5.78 References Total 301.00* 282.11 * 100.00 100.00 Feoli, E. 1973. An index for weighing characters in monothetic classifications. (Italian with English summary). Giorn. Bot. Ita!' 107: 263-268. Gower, J.e. 1967. A comparison of some methods of cluster is a monotone, increasing function of sample size if .. ).

The biophysical and socio-economic complexity of this phenomenon has challenged our ability to categorize, inventory, monitor and repair the condition of degraded lands. One of the most important distinctions to be made in relation to land degradation is between cultivated land used for annual crop production and `rangelands'.

Holm oak (Quercus ilex L) forests and woodlands have been considered as a paradigm for Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems. This book consists of a selection of papers presented during the workshop on Quercus ilex L Ecosystems workshop and other papers contributed after the workshop. It is divided into five sections.

Despite numerous physiological studies of UV-B effects on plants, often grown in climate chambers, knowledge of UV-B effects on organisms and processes in natural aquatic or terrestrial ecosystems is poor.

Symposium on Advances in Vegetation Science, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, May 1979

Symposium of the Working Group for Succession Research on Permanent Plots, and Data-Processing of the International Society for Vegetation Sciences, Held at Montpellier, France, September 1980

The biophysical and socio-economic complexity of this phenomenon has challenged our ability to categorize, inventory, monitor and repair the condition of degraded lands. One of the most important distinctions to be made in relation to land degradation is between cultivated land used for annual crop production and `rangelands'.

Proceedings of the symposium of the Working-Group for Theoretical Vegetation Science of the International Association for Vegetation Science held in Vienna, July 4-11, 1988

Despite numerous physiological studies of UV-B effects on plants, often grown in climate chambers, knowledge of UV-B effects on organisms and processes in natural aquatic or terrestrial ecosystems is poor.

This book brings together, for the first time, information on various wetland classification systems and wetland inventories from around the world, outlining regional, national and local wetland classifications developed in Africa, Australia, Canada, China, Europe, India, South America and the USA.

Instead, I chose to solicit research papers illustrating current applications of approaches Whittaker developed and showing a few of the recent advances which have grown directly from his pioneering work.

The chapters in this section place the problems of vegetation and climate interactions in semi-arid regions into the context which recur throughout the book. These regions are very sensitive to a variety of physical, chemical and biological degradation processes collectively called desertification.

Proceedings of a Symposium, Haamstede, The Netherlands, 1983