Handbook of Vegetation Science - Böcker

There are many books and computer programs dealing look ahead rather than pondering the past. This is a with data analysis. It would be easy to count at least a manual of recent views that evolved in the study of hundred, yet few of these would show applications in vegetation. This book is intended to emphasize the new vegetation science. Today in the face of environmental acquisitions which we believe significantly affect the degradation caused by anthropogenic pressures on the future of vegetation analysis: biosphere there is added urgency to study vegetation 1. Vegetation is a 'fuzzy' system, it must be treated as processes and dynamics in order to understand their role such at the set level, where the idea ofconceptualized in regulating the water, oxygen and the carbon cycles, in patterns must drive the research design. relation to global warming and ozone layer depletion. It 2. Vegetation cannot be seen only in the perspective of a is well known that ecology was developed first in vegeta­ traditional taxonomy based on the species concept; tion studies (see Acot 1989) but after an active period character sets of ecological value must enter into marked by intensive phytoclimatic and synecological consideration and a hierarchical analysis of patterns studies, vegetation science entered in a rather dormant and processes should be the basis of comparisons. period. Other ecological disciplines such as animal popu­ 3.

Readers will perhaps be suprised to find a volume about fungi within a handbook of vegitation science. Although fungi traditionally feature in textbooks on botany, at least since Whittaker (1969), they have mostly been categorized as an independent kingdom of organisms or, in contrast to the animal and plant kingdom, as probionta together with algae and protozoa. More relevant for ecology than the systematic separation of fungi from plants is the different lifestyle of fungi which, in contrast to most plants, live as parasites, saphrophytes or in symbiosis. Theoretical factors aside, there are also practical methodological considerations which favour the distinction between fungal and plant communities, as has been shown for example by Dorfelt (1974). Despite their special position in the science of botany, the science of fungi has been dealt with in this handbook of vegetation science. It would be wrong to conclude that the differences between fungal and plant communities are not taken into account.The reasons for including the former are that mycocoenology developed from phytocoenology, the similarity of the methods and concepts still employed today and the close correlation between fungi and plants in biocoenoses.

The impetus for this volume was the 2nd International Wetlands Conference which was held in June, 1984 at Trebon, Czechoslovakia. An overview of the worlds wetlands was one of the themes of the conference and it was decided that a useful follow-up would be a publication on the same topic. The initial goal was to cover as many of the worlds wetlands as possible in one volume and to have an emphasis on wetland ecology, biota, classification, and management. Individuals who made presentations at the Trebon confer­ ence were asked to prepare chapters and the editors also solicited other contributions. For a variety of reasons, the initial goal has been difficult to reach, especially coverage of the entire globe, and it has been necessary to publish the contributions in more than one volume. Volume 1 represents the com­ pletion of the first phase of the project and it covers most of the Western Hemisphere, Australia, most of Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Mediter­ ranean region, and Papua New Guinea. Volume 2 will contain chapters on Western Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe, most of northern and It is our hope that Volume western Asia, the Middle East, and Indonesia. 2 will appear in the near future and, if possible, a third volume will be published if authors can be secured to cover areas such as the Far East, other parts of the Indo-Pacific region, and New Zealand.

Volume 12 of the "Handbook of Vegetation Science", dealt with the application of vegetation science in forestry, mostly European forestry. It was well received by the critics with the exception that they wanted a more diversified demonstration of forestry-related vegetation science work and a wider representation of forest types from different continents. The topics covered in this volume, 12/1, widen the scope of vegetation science work in forestry over the phytosociological work which was the main focus in the previous volume. Topics covered include forest ecosystems of East and Southeast Asia in a global perspective; climatic relations of the forests of East and Southeast Asia; species diversity in East Asia in global perspective; evergreen forest regions; summergreen forest regions; montane/boreal regions; and tropical forest regions.

Successful growth and maintenance of plant cover is mostly dependent on mycorrhization. This book has been compiled to give a complete and comprehensive description of the topic to the students and researchers in botany, applied mycology, biotechnology, forestry and agriculture. The book will also be useful to planners dealing with biofertilizers and forestation. This book deals with all major aspects of mycorrhiza, giving structure, ultrastructure, ecology and applications in agriculture and forestry.

This work deals with the distributions of wetlands, the description of wetland types, wetland classification systems, ecological characteristics (primary forcing functions which are responsible for the development and persistence of the wetlands), wetland use and conservation and recommendations on what should be done for each type of wetland.

More than a decade has passed since Professor Gisela Jahn completed Volume 12 of the Handbook of Vegetation Science, dealing with the application of vegetation science in forestry, mostly European forestry. The volume was well received by the critics with the exception that they wanted a more diversified demonstration of forestry-related vegetation science work and a wider representation of forest types from different continents. The topics covered in this volume, 12/1, widen the scope of vegetation science work in forestry over the phytosociological work which was the main focus in the Handbook as perceived by Dr Tuxen. Section 1. Overview T. Kira: Forest Ecosystems of East and Southeast Asia in a Global Perspective; E.O. Box: Climatic Relations of the Forests of East and Southeast Asia; K. Iwatsuki: Species Diversity in East Asia in Global Perspective. The remaining contributions are divided into the following sections: Evergreen Forest Region; Summergreen Forest Region; Montane/Boreal Region; Tropical Forest Region.

Mycorrhiza will be the focus of research and study for the coming decade. Successful survival and maintenance of plant cover is mostly dependent on mycorrhization. During the last decade about ten books have appeared on various aspects of mycorrhiza, including two on methodology. The present book has been compiled to give a complete and comprehensive description of the topic to the students and researchers in botany, applied mycology, biotechnology, forestry and agriculture. The book will also be useful to planners dealing with biofertilizers and forestation. Besides topics of academic interest, the volume includes several aspects which are unique and are written about for the first time, e.g.: Arbuscular Mycorrhizal symbiosis - recognition and specificity; Mycorrhizal Integration and cellular compatibility between Endomycorrhizal symbionts; Cost - economics of existing methodology for inoculum production of vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi; Mycorrhiza: Ecological Implications of Plant interactions; Outplanting performance of mycorrhizal inoculated seedlings; Fluorescence microscopy in mycorrhiza studies and Ectomycorrhizal fungi as experimental organism.Other aspects not mentioned above include most recent reviews concerning vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhiza and ectomycorrhizae. The different review chapters have been written by world authorities in their respective specialisations giving more up to date information than is provided anywhere else. This book deals with all major aspects of mycorrhiza, giving structure, ultrastructure, ecology and applications in agriculture and forestry.

The analysis of vegetation history is one of the prime objectives for vegetation scientists. In order to understand the recent composition of local floras and plant communities a second knowledge of species com­ position during recent millenia is essential. With the present concern over climate changes, due to human activities, an understanding of past vegeta­ tion distribution becomes even more important, since the correlation between climate and vegetation can often be used to predict possible impacts to crops and forests. I was very fortunate to receive the help of Drs. Webb and Huntley to compile this volume on vegetation history. They have collated an impres­ sive set of papers which together give an account of the vegetation history of most of the continents during the late-Tertiary and Quaternery periods. There are, however, gaps in the coverage achieved, most notably Africa, and Asia apart from Japan. The information in this book will nonetheless certainly be used widely by vegetation scientists for the regions covered in the book and much of it has relevance to the areas not explicitly described. The authors of the individual chapters have done their best to cover recent topics of interest as well as established facts. It is intended that a separate volume will be produced in the near future covering the vegetation history of Africa and Asia. I thank the editors of It fits well into the this volume for their commendable achievement.

Natural grasslands, pastures and meadows are among the vegetation types most frequently investigated with phytosociological methods. This was one of the reasons why volume 13, Application of vegetation science to grassland husbandry and agriculture, edited by W. Krause, appeared as one of the first volumes of this handbook. It appeared under the chief editorship of Prof. R. Tiixen and in his time main emphasis of the handbook was placed on Ziirich-Montpellier methods and the European vegetation. When we redesigned the handbook we felt the need to include other methods and aims of grassland analyses as well as a more global coverage of grasslands. Especially the natural dry and semidry areas of the world needed to be covered. was very fortunate in getting Prof. Tueller of the University of Reno I Nevada as an editor for this volume. He and the colleagues he motivated to compile volume 14 on Application of vegetation science to rangeland analysis and management have created a truly global coverage of the topics interesting for vegetation analyses in natural grasslands. Since volume 13 covered the problems of anthropogenically created grasslands, this topic was not expressly treated in order to avoid duplication. For the same reason no specific attempt was made to get more papers from Europe and the temperate forest region in general. The cooperation with Dr. Tueller has been very rewarding for me.

By 1988 the Handbook of Vegetation Science is well on its way to completion. With 7 volumes in circulation, 3 volumes in the press, and most of the remaining volumes in preparation it appears that the total task can be completed in the early 'nineties. I am especially thankful to Professor Symoens for accepting the task of editing the volume on aquatic vegetation. The main emphasis of work in phytosociology is devoted to land plants, yet the landscape analysis remains incomplete without the consideration of rivers and lakes. Avolume on inland aquatic vegetation must therefore be most helpful to the land vegetation analyst and not only to the specialist on aquatic vegetation. Professor Symoens succeeded in drafting the most competent team for his task. I am sure that all colleagues working in vegetation analysis will be grateful to them that they have taken the time and energy to complete their chapters. Handbook articles are not easy to write and certainly not easy to edit. in the landscape are treated. The The major aquatic components vegetation analysts will welcome the fact that certain physiological and ecological processes of water plants are covered for which otherwise they would have to consult the limnological literature. This volume, together with the forthcoming volume on wetlands, should completely cover the inland aquatic vegetation problematic.

A large part of ecological research depends on use of two ap­ proaches to synthesizing information about natural communities: classification of communities (or samples representing these) into groups, and ordination (or arrangement) of samples in relation to environmental variables. A book published in 1973, 'Ordination and Classification of Communities,' sought to provide, through contributions by an international panel of authors, a coherent treatise on these methods. The book appeared then as Volume 5 of the Handbook of Vegetation Science, for which R. TuxEN is general editor. The desire to make this work more widely available in a less expensive form is one of the reasons for this second edition separating the articles on ordinction and on classification into two volumes. The other reason is the rapid advancement of understanding in the area of indirect ordination-mathematical techniques that seek to use measurements of samples from natural communities to produce arrangements that reveal environmental relationships of these communities. Such is the rate of change in this area that the last chapter on ordination in the first edition is already, 4 or 5 years after it was written, out of date; and new techniques of indirect ordination that could only be mentioned as possibilities in the first edition are becoming prominent in the field. In preparing the second edition the chapter on evaluation of ordinations has been rewritten, a new chapter on recent developments in continuous multivariate techniques has been included, and references to recent work have been added to other chapters.

The natural communities of the world are diverse, and many schools of ecology have developed classifications of communities in partial independence of one another. There is consequently a vast and widely dispersed literature on the classification of plant and animal communities, comprising divergent approaches of different schools and representing a great experiment on the usefulness of different possibilities for classification. The editor sought in a re­ view monograph of 1962 to summarize these schools and their history, and in 1973 published a treatise on 'Ordination and Clas­ sification of Communities' as volume 5 of the Handbook of Vegetation Science. We were fortunate, in preparing the latter work, to have a truly international panel of authors to discuss different major ap­ proaches to classification. This second edition of the book of 1973 is intended to make the work more widely available in a less expensive form as companion volumes on ordination and on classification of plant communities.

WERNER KRAUSE INTRODUCTION GENERAL COMMENTS ON THIS VOLUME The subject" Application of vegetation science to grassland husbandry" is not limited by geographical boundaries. It is pro­ posed to cover this subject in an internationally applicable work of reference. However, to avoid omissions it would have to em­ brace all the diversity of grassland from the Arctic to the Equa­ tor. The term "application" requires that the papers contained herein take into account both generally relevant scientific knowl­ edge and the special needs of practical farming. The latter are not satisfied solely by the laws of vegetation science; the changing effects of the market, politics, the distribution of wealth and poverty, highly developed technology and the continued use of archaic farming methods must all be considered. To try to cover all this adequately in one volume of ap­ proximately 550 pages is a hopeless task. The editor and the authors had to limit themselves to presenting a selection of prob­ lems and attempts to solve them, with the aim that these exam­ ples should indicate how much vegetation science can contribute to grassland husbandry, and the scope of this contribution is broadened by the references quoted. The arrangement of the sections within this volume does not lend itself to specific suggestions for the management of individual systems. However, grassland husbandry can expect to obtain from this work an'insight into some overall general rela­ tionships, which could assist the adviser in the formulation of more specific improvement plans.

During the International Botanical Congress in Edinburgh, 1964, Mrs. 1. M. WEISBACH-J UNK of The Hague discussed a plan for preparation by her publishing company (Dr. W. Junk b.v.) of an international Handbook of Vegetation Science. She proposed a series that should give a comprehensive survey of the varied directions within this science, and their achievements to date as well as their objectives for the future. The challenge of such an enterprise, and its evident value for the further development of vegetation research, induced the undersigned after some consideration to accept the offer of the honorable but also burdensome task of General Editor. The decision was encouraged by a well formulated and detailed outline for the Handbook worked out by the Dutch phytosociolo­ gists J. J. BARKMAN and V. WESTHOFF. A circle of scholars from numerous countries was invited by the Dr. Junk Publishing Com­ pany to The Hague in January 1966 to draw up a list of editors and contributors for the parts of the Handbook. The outline and list have served since for the organization of the Handbook, with no need for major change. The different burdens of editors and authors have compelled quite different timings for completion of the individual sections.

During the International Botanical Congress in Edinburgh, 1964, Mrs. I. M. WEISBACH-JUNK of The Hague discussed a plan for preparation by her publishing company (Dr. W. Junk B.V.) of an international Handbook of Vegetation Science. She proposed a series that should give a comprehensive survey of the varied directions within this science, and their achievements to date as well as their objectives for the future. The challenge of such an enterprise, and its evident value for the further development of vegetation research, induced the undersigned after some consideration to accept the offer of the honorable but also burdensome task of General Editor. The decision was encouraged by a well formulated and detailed outline for the Handbook worked out by the Dutch phytosociolo­ gists J. J. BARKMAN and V. WESTHOFF. A circle of scholars from numerous countries was invited by the Dr. Junk Publishing Com­ pany to The Hague in January 1966 to draw up a list of editors and contributors for the parts of the Handbook. The outline and list have served since for the organization of the Handbook, with no need for major change. The different burdens of editors and authors have compelled quite different timings for completion of the individual sections.

Readers will perhaps be surprised to find a volume about fungi within a handbook of vegetation science. Although fungi traditionally feature in textbooks on botany, at least since Whittaker (1969), they have mostly been categorised as an independent kingdom of organisms or, in contrast to the animal and plant kingdom, as probionta together with algae and protozoa. More relevant for ecology than the systematic separation of fungi from plants is the different lifestyle of fungi which, in contrast to most plants, live as parasites, saprophytes or in symbiosis. Theoretical factors aside, there are also practical methodological considerations which favour the distinction between fungal and plant communities, as has been shown for example by Dörfelt (1974). Despite their special position the coenology of fungi has been dealt with in the handbook of vegetation science. It would be wrong to conclude that we underestimate the important differences between fungal and plant communities. The reasons for including the former are that mycocoenology developed from phytocoenology, the similarity of the methods and concepts still employed today and the close correlation between fungi and plants in biocoenoses.

There are many books and computer programs dealing look ahead rather than pondering the past. This is a with data analysis. It would be easy to count at least a manual of recent views that evolved in the study of hundred, yet few of these would show applications in vegetation. This book is intended to emphasize the new vegetation science. Today in the face of environmental acquisitions which we believe significantly affect the degradation caused by anthropogenic pressures on the future of vegetation analysis: biosphere there is added urgency to study vegetation 1. Vegetation is a 'fuzzy' system, it must be treated as processes and dynamics in order to understand their role such at the set level, where the idea ofconceptualized in regulating the water, oxygen and the carbon cycles, in patterns must drive the research design. relation to global warming and ozone layer depletion. It 2. Vegetation cannot be seen only in the perspective of a is well known that ecology was developed first in vegeta­ traditional taxonomy based on the species concept; tion studies (see Acot 1989) but after an active period character sets of ecological value must enter into marked by intensive phytoclimatic and synecological consideration and a hierarchical analysis of patterns studies, vegetation science entered in a rather dormant and processes should be the basis of comparisons. period. Other ecological disciplines such as animal popu­ 3.

A. W. KOCHLER The intimate intercourse between two or more 2. vegetation maps are scientific tools for ana­ fields of knowledge often bears interesting and lyzing the environment and the relation­ valuable fruit. Vegetation maps are such fruit, ships between vegetation and the site on resulting from the union of botany and geogra­ which it occurs. This helps to explain the phy. The work of botanists can be comprehen­ distribution of plant communities on the sive only if it includes a consideration of plants basis of the physical and chemical features in space, i. e. in different types of landscapes. At of the landscape. On the other hand, plant this point, the work of geographers becomes communities allow conclusions on the natu­ important through their development of maps re of the environment; as tools to determine and to analyze distribu­ 3. vegetation maps are valuable standards of tions in space. Our highly developed knowledge reference for observing and measuring of vegetation is matched by the refinement of changes in the vegetation, their direction cartographic techniques, and maps can now be and their speed, i. e. the rate of change. This is important because the character ofvegeta­ made that will show the extent and geographical distribution of vegetation anywhere on the sur­ tion is dynamic and is increasingly affected face of our planet with a remarkable degree of by man; accuracy. 4.

Natural grasslands, pastures and meadows are among the vegetation types most frequently investigated with phytosociological methods. This was one of the reasons why volume 13, Application of vegetation science to grassland husbandry and agriculture, edited by W. Krause, appeared as one of the first volumes of this handbook. It appeared under the chief editorship of Prof. R. Tiixen and in his time main emphasis of the handbook was placed on Ziirich-Montpellier methods and the European vegetation. When we redesigned the handbook we felt the need to include other methods and aims of grassland analyses as well as a more global coverage of grasslands. Especially the natural dry and semidry areas of the world needed to be covered. was very fortunate in getting Prof. Tueller of the University of Reno I Nevada as an editor for this volume. He and the colleagues he motivated to compile volume 14 on Application of vegetation science to rangeland analysis and management have created a truly global coverage of the topics interesting for vegetation analyses in natural grasslands. Since volume 13 covered the problems of anthropogenically created grasslands, this topic was not expressly treated in order to avoid duplication. For the same reason no specific attempt was made to get more papers from Europe and the temperate forest region in general. The cooperation with Dr. Tueller has been very rewarding for me.

By 1988 the Handbook of Vegetation Science is well on its way to completion. With 7 volumes in circulation, 3 volumes in the press, and most of the remaining volumes in preparation it appears that the total task can be completed in the early 'nineties. I am especially thankful to Professor Symoens for accepting the task of editing the volume on aquatic vegetation. The main emphasis of work in phytosociology is devoted to land plants, yet the landscape analysis remains incomplete without the consideration of rivers and lakes. Avolume on inland aquatic vegetation must therefore be most helpful to the land vegetation analyst and not only to the specialist on aquatic vegetation. Professor Symoens succeeded in drafting the most competent team for his task. I am sure that all colleagues working in vegetation analysis will be grateful to them that they have taken the time and energy to complete their chapters. Handbook articles are not easy to write and certainly not easy to edit. in the landscape are treated. The The major aquatic components vegetation analysts will welcome the fact that certain physiological and ecological processes of water plants are covered for which otherwise they would have to consult the limnological literature. This volume, together with the forthcoming volume on wetlands, should completely cover the inland aquatic vegetation problematic.