Mountain plants, Andes Region.

Covers the range of natural and managed oak forests in the highlands of tropical America. Providing an understanding of ecological patterns and processes that determine the structure and functioning of these forests, this volume aims to serve as a basis for sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation.

Mountain plants, Andes Region.

Annotation A collection of papers regarding the conservation of Costa Rica's tropical dry forest, which is disappearing more rapidly than its rain forest, due to ease of conversion to agriculture.

This volume represents a uniquely comprehensive overview of our current knowledge on tropical montane cloud forests. 72 chapters cover a wide spectrum of topics including cloud forest distribution, climate, soils, biodiversity, hydrological processes, hydrochemistry and water quality, climate change impacts, and cloud forest conservation, management, and restoration. The final chapter presents a major synthesis by some of the world's leading cloud forest researchers, which summarizes our current knowledge and considers the sustainability of these forests in an ever-changing world. This book presents state-of-the-art knowledge concerning cloud forest occurrence and status, as well as the biological and hydrological value of these unique forests. The presentation is academic but with a firm practical emphasis. It will serve as a core reference for academic researchers and students of environmental science and ecology, as well as practitioners (natural resources management, forest conservation) and decision makers at local, national, and international levels.

Ecology and economics have Greek roots in oikos for "household", logos for "study", and nomics for "management". Thus, ecology and economics should have complemented one another for a proper growth and development without destruction, but, unfortunately, rapid industrialization, lure for fast financial gains, and commercialization activities have led to a widespread surge in pollution load, environmental degradation, habitat destruction, rapid loss ofbiodiversity, sudden rise in rate ofextinction ofmany wildlife and wild relatives of domesticated animals and cultivated cereals and other plants, global climate changes creating global rise in temperature, and CO levels and increased ultraviolet B at ground 2 level. Although these threats to human health have led us to look to ecology for their solutions and guidance for sustainable development without destruction, the industrial and technology houses are looking for alternative methods of development and resource use methods. The two global conferences of the United Nations in 1972 and 1992, and international programs of Man and the Biosphere (MAB), International Biological Program (IBP), International Geosphere, Biosphere program (lGBP), and World Conser vation Union (IUCN), of different commissions, United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) efforts, Ramsar Conventions (for wetlands), and World Wide fund for Nature (WWF) (for nature in general and wildlife in particular) have focused attention of ecologists, naturalists, governments and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) toward better conservation.

Neotropical lowland rain forests have received much attention in the last decade, particularly in the debate concerning biological diversity. The lowland forests have been mentioned over and over again as examples of the genetic richness of the tropical forests, and it is true that in small sample plots of, for instance, one hectare of lowland rain forest, the number of species is enormous. Lately, however, it has become increasingly clear, that the high alpha-diversity of lowland tropical rain forests is not accompanied by an equally high beta- and gamma-diversity. Montane forests, on the other hand, have been known for their richness, but when estimating their alpha-diversity by traditional methods using quantitative inventories of trees, their species richness does not equal that of lowland forests. Recent work that includes other life forms than trees, ie. epiphytes, climbers, shrubs and non-vascular plants, however, indicate that the alpha-diversity in many montane forests equals that of lowland forests. When studying the diversity patterns on slightly larger geographic scales, it has become evident that differences in species composition between localities in montane forests is tremendous - their beta- and gamma-diversities are high. It appears that, although they cover much smaller extensions than lowland rain forests, Montane forests are the homes of the better part of the biological diversity of the neotropical countries. Discussions and attention relating to conservation has been equally skewed towards the lowland forests. Still, the montane forests are just as threatened by road construction, agriculture and cattle farming as the lowland forests are. Considering this lack of attention to montane forests, despite their importance for the biological diversity of the neotropics, it was appropriate to call for a symposium addressing these issues. Much knowledge obviously exists, but often in a scattered form, and it was the intention that a symposium could bring together researchers and others with interest in neotropical montane forests, biodiversity and conservation, to exchange ideas and knowledge, and to call attention to the importance of these ecosystems for the future of genetic resources of our planet. This volume contains a selection of abstracts from the "Neotropical Montane Forests Symposium" held at the New York Botanical Garden from June 21-26, 1993. The purpose of the symposium is to document biological and ecological diversity in neotropical wet and moist Montane forests, and place it in the context with other neotropical areas. Emphasis is given to plants, with regards to taxonomic and ecological richness, threatened and conservation areas of high biodiversity and endemism, the evolution, diversity, speciation, distribution and biogeography of Andean-centred genera and families.

This new four-volume set, Global Biodiversity, provides a wealth of insightful information on the biodiversity of selected nations around the world. The volumes provide informative summaries of the available data on both wild and cultivated plants, wild and domesticated animals, and microbes of the different nations selected.

This book is the result of the first global conference on mountain biodiversity, and is a contribution to the International Year of Mountains, 2002. The Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment program is a Special Target Area Region project of DIVERSITAS (UNESCO and UNEP). Biological diversity is essential for the integrity of mountain ecosystems and this dependency is likely to increase as environmental (climate) and social conditions change. Steep terrain and climate, and severe land-use pressure cause mountain ecosystems to rank among the world's most endangered landscapes. The 28 chapters in this book represent research on the biological riches in all major mountain ranges of the world, and synthesize existing knowledge on mountain biodiversity - from diversity of bacteria, plants and animals to human diversity. The book is divided into five sections: an introduction providing an overview of the issues; plant and animal diversity; climate change and mountain biodiversity; land use and conservation; and a synthesis.