Forest fragmentation will inevitably continue over the coming years, especially in developing economies. This book provides a cutting edge review of the multi-disciplinary sciences related to studies of global forest fragmentation. It specifically addresses cross-cutting themes from both an ecological and a social sciences perspective. The ultimate goal of Global Forest Fragmentation is to provide a detailed scientific base to support future forest landscape management and planning to meet global environmental and societal needs.

Habitat loss and degradation that comes as a result of human activity is the single biggest threat to biodiversity in the world today. Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change is a groundbreaking work that brings together a wealth of information from a wide range of sources to define the ecological problems caused by landscape change and to highlight the relationships among landscape change, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity conservation. The book: synthesizes a large body of information from the scientific literature considers key theoretical principles for examining and predicting effects examines the range of effects that can arise explores ways of mitigating impacts reviews approaches to studying the problem discusses knowledge gaps and future areas for research and management Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change offers a unique mix of theoretical and practical information, outlining general principles and approaches and illustrating those principles with case studies from around the world. It represents a definitive overview and synthesis on the full range of topics that fall under the widely used but often vaguely defined term "habitat fragmentation."

The book contains 15 chapters and provides an overview and synthesis of forest fragmentation and its influences on key ecological processes and vertebrate productivity. Land use practices and their effects on vertebrate populations and productivity are discussed and examples of several planning approaches to address landscape-level management effects are described.

We live in an increasingly fragmented world, with islands of natural habitat cast adrift in a sea of cleared, burned, logged, polluted, and otherwise altered lands. Nowhere are fragmentation and its devastating effects more evident than in the tropical forests. By the year 2000, more than half of these forests will have been cut, causing increased soil erosion, watershed destabilization, climate degradation, and extinction of as many as 600,000 species. Tropical Forest Remnants provides the best information available to help us understand, manage, and conserve the remaining fragments. Covering geographic areas from Southeast Asia and Australia to Madagascar and the New World, this volume summarizes what is known about the ecology, management, restoration, socioeconomics, and conservation of fragmented forests. Thirty-three papers present results of recent research as well as updates from decades-long projects in progress. Two final chapters synthesize the state of research on tropical forest fragmentation and identify key priorities for future work.

In this poineering application of island biogeography theory, Harris presents an alternative to current practices of timber harvesting. "Harris pulls together many threads of biological thinking about islands and their effect on plant and animal survival and evolution. He weaves these threads into a model for managing forest lands in a manner that might serve both our short-term economic and social needs as well as what some people feel is our ancient charge to be steward of all parts of creation."—American Forests Winner of the 1986 Wildlife Society Publication Award

Deforestation is occurring at an alarming rate in many parts of the world, causing destruction of natural habitat and fragmentation of what remains. Nowhere is this problem more pressing than in the Amazon rainforest, which is rapidly vanishing in the face of enormous pressure from humans to exploit it. This book presents the results of the longest-running and most comprehensive study of forest fragmentation ever undertaken, the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) in central Amazonia, the only experimental study of tropical forest fragmentation in which baseline data are available before isolation from continuous forest took place.A joint project of Brazil’s National Institute for Research in Amazonia and the U.S. Smithsonian Institution, the BDFFP has investigated the many effects that habitat fragmentation has on plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates. The book provides an overview of the BDFFP, reports on its case studies, looks at forest ecology and tree genetics, and considers what issues are involved in establishing conservation and management guidelines.

This volume was created initially from a symposium of the same name presented at the International Primatological Society's XVIII Congress in Adelaide. South Australia. 6-12 January 2000. Many of the authors who have contributed to this text could not attend the symposium. so this has become another vehicle for the rapidly growing discipline of Fragmentation Science among primatologists. Fragmentation has quickly become a field separate from general ecology. which underscores the severity of the situation since we as a planet are rapidly losing habitat of all types to human disturbance. Getting ecologists. particularly primatologists. to admit that they study in fragments is not easy. In the field of primatology. one studies many things. but rarely do those things (genetics. behavior. population dynamics) get called out as studies in fragmentation. For some reason "fragmentation primatologists" fear that our work is somehow "not as good" as those who study in continuous habitat. We worry that perhaps our subjects are not demonstrating as robust behaviors as they "should" given fragmented or disturbed habitat conditions. I had a colleague openly state that she did not work in fragmented forests. that she merely studied behavior when it was clear that her study sites. everyone of them. was isolated habitat. Our desire to be just another link in the data chain for wild primates is so strong that it makes us deny what kinds of habitats we are working in. However.

The 7-volume Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Second Edition maintains the reputation of the highly regarded original, presenting the most current information available in this globally crucial area of research and study. It brings together the dimensions of biodiversity and examines both the services it provides and the measures to protect it. Major themes of the work include the evolution of biodiversity, systems for classifying and defining biodiversity, ecological patterns and theories of biodiversity, and an assessment of contemporary patterns and trends in biodiversity. The science of biodiversity has become the science of our future. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning areas of both physical and life sciences. Our awareness of the loss of biodiversity has brought a long overdue appreciation of the magnitude of this loss and a determination to develop the tools to protect our future. Second edition includes over 100 new articles and 226 updated articles covering this multidisciplinary field— from evolution to habits to economics, in 7 volumes The editors of this edition are all well respected, instantly recognizable academics operating at the top of their respective fields in biodiversity research; readers can be assured that they are reading material that has been meticulously checked and reviewed by experts Approximately 1,800 figures and 350 tables complement the text, and more than 3,000 glossary entries explain key terms