In North America, concepts of Historical Range of Variability are being employed in land-management planning for properties of private organizations and multiple government agencies. The National Park Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and The Nature Conservancy all include elements of historical ecology in their planning processes. Similar approaches are part of land management and conservation in Europe and Australia. Each of these user groups must struggle with the added complication of rapid climate change, rapid land-use change, and technical issues in order to employ historical ecology effectively. Historical Environmental Variation in Conservation and Natural Resource Management explores the utility of historical ecology in a management and conservation context and the development of concepts related to understanding future ranges of variability. It provides guidance and insights to all those entrusted with managing and conserving natural resources: land-use planners, ecologists, fire scientists, natural resource policy makers, conservation biologists, refuge and preserve managers, and field practitioners. The book will be particularly timely as science-based management is once again emphasized in United States federal land management and as an understanding of the potential effects of climate change becomes more widespread among resource managers. Additional resources for this book can be found at: www.wiley.com/go/wiens/historicalenvironmentalvariation.

Geographic Variation in Forest Trees is the first book to examine this subject from a world-wide perspective. The author discusses population genetic theory and genetic systems of native North American tree species as they interact with environments in the major climatic regions in the world. He then demonstrates how this knowledge is used to guide seed zoning and seed transfer in silviculture, basing much of his discussion on models developed in Scandinavia and North America. In the final chapter, the author addresses the issue of genetic conservation -- a subject of great concern in the face of accelerated forest destruction, industrial pollution, and climatic change. This comprehensive, well-researched book makes a significant contribution to the knowledge of one of our most important renewable natural resources.