Global biodiversity : key issues and strategies

The relationship between global biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has emerged as one of the most exciting and dynamic areas in contemporary ecology. Increasing domination of ecosystems by humans is steadily transforming them into depauperate systems. This book provides the first comprehensive and balanced coverage of recent empirical and theoretical research on this question. It reviews the evidence, provides bases for the resolution of the debate that has divided scientists on these issues, and offers perspectives on how current knowledge can be extended to other ecosystems, other organisms and other spatial and temporal scales. It cuts across the traditional division between community ecology and ecosystem ecology, and announces a new ecological synthesis in which the dynamics of global biodiversity and the biogeochemical functioning of the Earth system are merged.

Global Biodiversity presents strategies for enhancing matrix management that can play a vital role in the development of more effective approaches to maintaining global biodiversity. It examines the key issues and gives practical guidelines for sustained forest management, highlighting the critical role of the matrix for scientists, managers, decision makers, and other stakeholders involved in efforts to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem processes in forest landscapes.