Long Term Forest Dynamics Of The Temperate Zone

The synthesis presented in this volume is a direct outgrowth of our ten-year FORMAP Project (Forest Mapping Across Eastern North America from 20,000 yr B.P. to the Present). Many previous research efforts in paleoecology have used plant-fossil evidence as proxy information for primarily geologic or climatic reconstructions or as a bio stratigraphic basis for correlation of regional events. In contrast, in this book, we deal with ecological questions that require a holistic perspective that integrates the interactions of biota with their dynamically changing environments over time scales up to tens of thousands of years. In the FORMAP Project, our major research objective has been to use late-Quaternary plant-ecological data sets to evaluate long-term patterns and processes in forest de velopment. In order to accomplish this objective, we have prepared subcontinent-scale calibrations that quantitatively relate the production and dispersal of arboreal pollen to dominance in the vegetation for the major tree types of eastern North America. Quantification of pollen-vegetation relationships provides a basis for developing quan titative plant-ecological data sets that allow further ecological analysis of both individual taxa and forest communities through time. Application of these calibrations to fossil pollen records for interpreting forest history thus represents a fundamental step beyond traditional summaries based upon pollen percentages.

Temperate-zone forests are being shaped continuously by wind, fire and grazing. This book considers these disturbances and consequent issues such as recovery from disturbance, the changing composition of tree species within the forest and the formation of mosaics of different forest types across the landscape.

Since humans first appeared on the earth, we've been cutting down trees for fuel and shelter. Indeed, the thinning, changing, and wholesale clearing of forests are among the most important ways humans have transformed the global environment. With the onset of industrialization and colonization the process has accelerated, as agriculture, metal smelting, trade, war, territorial expansion, and even cultural aversion to forests have all taken their toll. Michael Williams surveys ten thousand years of history to trace how, why, and when human-induced deforestation has shaped economies, societies, and landscapes around the world. Beginning with the return of the forests to Europe, North America, and the tropics after the Ice Ages, Williams traces the impact of human-set fires for gathering and hunting, land clearing for agriculture, and other activities from the Paleolithic through the classical world and the Middle Ages. He then continues the story from the 1500s to the early 1900s, focusing on forest clearing both within Europe and by European imperialists and industrialists abroad, in such places as the New World and India, China, Japan, and Latin America. Finally, he covers the present-day and alarming escalation of deforestation, with the ever-increasing human population placing a possibly unsupportable burden on the world's forests. Accessible and nonsensationalist, Deforesting the Earth provides the historical and geographical background we need for a deeper understanding of deforestation's tremendous impact on the environment and the people who inhabit it.

Theimer, an accomplished ecologist.

USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests and Ranges (EFRs) are scientific treasures, providing secure, protected research sites where complex and diverse ecological processes are studied over the long term. This book offers several examples of the dynamic interactions among questions of public concern or policy, EFR research, and natural resource management practices and policies. Often, trends observed – or expected -- in the early years of a research program are contradicted or confounded as the research record extends over decades. The EFRs are among the few areas in the US where such long-term research has been carried out by teams of scientists. Changes in society’s needs and values can also redirect research programs. Each chapter of this book reflects the interplay between the ecological results that emerge from a long-term research project and the social forces that influence questions asked and resources invested in ecological research. While these stories include summaries and syntheses of traditional research results, they offer a distinctly new perspective, a larger and more complete picture than that provided by a more typical 5-year study. They also provide examples of long-term research on EFRs that have provided answers for questions not even imagined at the time the study was installed.

The biological effects of global warming should be of concern to all thinking individuals, for warming could cause profound disruption of natural ecosystems and could threaten many species with extinction. This important book--the first to discuss in detail the consequences of global warming for ecosystems--includes commentary by distinguished scientists on many aspects of this critical problem. Experts describe responses of animals and plants to previous climate changes, interactions between various environmental components (precipitation and soil chemistry, for example), and synergisms between climate change and human activities such as deforestation. They consider many specific ecosystems, including tropical forests, the deciduous forests of eastern North America, the forests of the Pacific Northwest, Mediterranean-type ecosystems in California, arctic tundra, and arctic marine systems. Offering discussions that are both factual and speculative, the volume points the way to future investigations of the implications of global warming.