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How does loss of biodiversity affect the functioning and stability of natural and managed ecosystems? This book presents empirical and theoretical research on this question. It aims to cut 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.
'The outline is excellent. This is going to be the hottest book in ecology over the next 5 to 10 years.' Professor Michael Hochberg, Universite de Montpellier 2, France
1. BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING: THE EMERGENCE OF A SYNTHETIC FRAMEWORK; 2. The debate on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning; 3. PLANT DIVERSITY AND COMPOSITION: EFFECTS ON PRODUCTIVITY AND NUTRIENT DYNAMICS OF EXPERIMENTAL GRASSLANDS; 4. Biodiversity manipulation experiments: studies replicated at multiple sites; 5. Evaluating the relative strengths of biotic versus abiotic controls of ecosystem processes; 6. The design and analysis of biodiversity experiments; 7. A NEW LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STABILITY AND DIVERSITY; 8. Do species interactions buffer environmental variation (in theory)?; 9. Biodiversity and stability in soil ecosystems: patterns, processes and the effects of disturbance; 10. Neighbourhood-scale effects of species diversity on biological invasions and their relation to community patterns; 11. CONTRIBUTIONS OF AQUATIC MODEL SYSTEMS TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING; 12. How can marine ecology contribute to the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning debate?; 13. Multitrophic dynamics and ecosystem processes; 14. Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and the aboveground-belowground linkages; 15. Biodiversity and ecosystem function in soil decomposer food webs; 16. The critical role of plant-microbe interactions on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: arbuscular mycorrhizal associations as an example; 17. SPECIES DIVERSITY, FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING; 18. Slippin' and slidin' between the scales: the scaling components of the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relations; 19. Effect of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning in managed ecosystems; 20. PERSPECTIVES AND CHALLENGES
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
