Vegetation Dynamics And Global Change

The response of forests to global climate change is one of the most hotly contested issues in the greenhouse effect debate. Much effort is being devoted to the construction of models which describe the function of the forests and their rate of change. There are a wealth of techniques available to project large-scale vegetation patterns, all based on different underlying models that contain fundamental biological and ecological mechanisms. Vegetation Dynamics and Global Change will introduce both students and professionals to the sophisticated mathematical and computational tools used to predict the rate of change in the world's forests. It emphasizes the importance of scale in global studies. Leaders in the field of vegetation modeling cover physiological phenomena typically measured at small time and space scales; the stand dynamics of forests; large-scale models of forest dynamics; the reconstruction of forest vegetation of past climates as a way to understand current global changes; and the role of forests in the global carbon cycle. Several themes run through the book, including the need to understand how processes important at one time and space scale can be conceptualized at larger scales; the need to optimize the conceptual benefits of representing processes in detail and the attendant difficulties of estimating parameters and designing tests for elaborate models; and the need to identify the most appropriate system variables.

List of contents

Preface. List of contributors. Part one: Introduction: Global change - H H Shugart; Biospheric implications of global environmental change - A M Solomon and W P Cramer; Part two: Biotic responses to global environmental change: Carbon dioxide fertilization: the great uncertainty in future vegetation development - C Korner; Leaf responses to the environment and extrapolation to larger scales - F I Woodward; The prediction and physiological significance of tree height - A D Friend; Uncertainties in the terrestrial carbon cycle - W M Post; Atmosphere/vegetation coupling - P Martin; Part three: Measuring global vegetation change: Monitoring vegetation change using satellite data - B N Rock, D L Skole and B J Choudhury; Global geographic information systems and databases for vegetation change studies - D L Skole, B Moore III and W H Chomentowski; Assessing impacts of climate change on vegetation using climate classification systems - W P Cramer and R Leemans; Vegetation biodiversity and classification systems - G Grabherr and S Kojima; Part four: Modeling global vegetation change: Modeling large-scale vegetation dynamics - I C Prentice, R A Monserud, T M Smith and W R Emanuel; Plant functional types - T M Smith, H H Shugart, F I Woodward and P J Barton; Vegetational functional classification systems as approaches to predicting and quantifying global vegetation change - J P Grime; Modeling crop responses to environmental change - C Rosenzweig; Concluding comments; Index.

Summary

The response of forests to global climate change is one of the most hotly contested issues in the greenhouse effect debate. Vegetation Dynamics and Global Change will introduce both students and professionals to the sophisticated mathematical and computational tools used to predict the rate of change in the world's forests.

Report

The book is a fine step in the right direction in a field that is moving very fast indeed. ... a thoroughly scholarly and constructive contribution that will be a primary reference over the next years. Book Reviews; The book is a fine step in the right direction in a field that is moving very fast indeed. ... a thoroughly scholarly and constructive contribution that will be a primary reference over the next years. Book Reviews; The book is a fine step in the right direction in a field that is moving very fast indeed. ... a thoroughly scholarly and constructive contribution that will be a primary reference over the next years. Book Reviews

Product details

• Authors: H. H. Shugart, Herman Shugart, Herman H Shugart, Herman H. Shugart, Allen M Solomon, Allen M. Solomon
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 29.06.2009
• EAN: 9780412036811
• ISBN: 978-0-412-03681-1
• No. of pages: 364
• Weight: 522 g
• Illustrations: 364 p.
• Subject: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Biology > Botany