Overview

The relationship between 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. How will this loss of biodiversity affect the functioning and stability of natural and managed ecosystems? This volume 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 biological diversity and the biogeochemical functioning of the Earth system are merged.

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9780198515715

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Reviews

This volume will stand as a benchmark for the field and should be on every ecologist's bookshelf Ecology Reading this text gives one the impression of being at the beginning of a considerable change in ecological thought and action. Its clarity of thought and scope suggest that, in common with very few other texts, it could well become a classic in its field ... Anybody who takes ecology seriously should read this book! TEGnews

This volume will stand as a benchmark for the field and should be on every ecologist's bookshelf Ecology Reading this text gives one the impression of being at the beginning of a considerable change in ecological thought and action. Its clarity of thought and scope suggest that, in common with very few other texts, it could well become a classic in its field ... Anybody who takes ecology seriously should read this book! TEGnews

Author Information

Michel Loreau Professor at Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris Belgian, born Uccle, Belgium 22/04/54 Shahid Naeem Associate Professor, Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle USA, born San Francisco, California, USA, 16/10/52 Pablo Inchausti Researcher at Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris Italian, born Montivideo, Uraguay 21/03/64

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