John H. Lawton – författare

This useful new book answers the need for data-driven estimates of recent (1600 onwards) extinction rates as a basis for more accurate projections of extinction rates for the centuries to come. This book provides a more wide-ranging and data-driven treatment of present and likely future rates of extinction than any text currently available. It is directed broadly at senior undergraduates, postgraduate students and research workers in the fields of ecology, conservation biology and the environmental sciences. The authors highlight apparent differences in extinction rates among taxonomic groups and places, aiming to identify unresolved issues and important questions.

This volume focuses on the integration of population and ecosystem ecology - an approach that offers vast potential for improving our understanding of the complexities of nature and the management of environmental problems. The editors have brought together a group of experts to explore diverse aspects of linking species and ecosystem perspectives - theoretical, empirical and pragmatic. These include: processes that range from a local to a planetary scale; the role of organisms as ecosystem engineers; the use of ecological flow chains to link population and ecosystem processes; numerous examples of the influence of species on ecosystem processes and vice versa; a unique blend of problems and processes drawn from marine; freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems; problems of "species redundancy" in ecosystem processes; stoichiometric constraints on species interactions; and scaling and aggregation problems. "Linking Species and Ecosystems" establishes conceptual frameworks for the rigorous study of interactions between species and ecosystems, it points to still-unanswered questions, and it identifies future research directions.Integration of ecology with its implications for teaching, research and society are central to the book. This volume should serve as a resource for ecology researchers, students, and environmental managers and should stimulate debate on the future integration of the field. This book should be of interest to ecologists - graduate students and established researchers; biology; zoology; ecology; evolutionary biology; integrative or organismal biology; entomology; plant science; forestry; wildlife management; and environmental studies.

I was asked to introduce this volume by examining "why a knowledge of ecosys­ tem functioning can contribute to understanding species activities, dynamics, and assemblages." On the one hand, the answer is very simple and general: because all species live in ecosystems, they are part of and dependent on ecosystem processes.