Pattern and Process in a Forested Ecosystem: Disturbance, Development and the Steady State Based on the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study - Softcover

Bormann, F.Herbert; Likens, Gene E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0387943447 ISBN 13: 9780387943442

Publisher: Springer, 1994

Synopsis

The advent of ecosystem ecology has created great difficulties for ecologists primarily trained as biologists, since inevitably as the field grew, it absorbed components of other disciplines relatively foreign to most ecologists yet vital to the understanding of the structure and function of ecosystems. From the point of view of the biological ecologist struggling to understand the enormous complexity of the biological functions within an ecosystem, the added necessity of integrating biology with geochemis­ try, hydrology, micrometeorology, geomorphology, pedology, and applied sciences (like silviculture and land use management) often has appeared as an impossible requirement. Ecologists have frequently responded by limiting their perspective to biology with the result that the modeling of species interactions is sometimes considered as modeling ecosystems, or modeling the living fraction of the ecosystems is considered as modeling whole ecosystems. Such of course is not the case, since understanding the structure and function of ecosystems requires sound understanding of inanimate as well as animate processes and often neither can be under­ stood without the other. About 15 years ago, a view of ecology somewhat different from most then prevailing, coupled with a strong dose of naivete and a sense of exploration, lead us to believe that consideration of the inanimate side of ecosystem function rather than being just one more annoying complexity might provide exceptional advantages in the study of ecosystems. To examine this possibility, we took two steps which occurred more or less simultaneously.

About this title

Synopsis

This volume draws on the Hubbard Brook Experiment to present an integrated picture of the structure, function, and development over time of the northern hardwood ecosystem in northern New England. Topics covered include important ecological problems such as the limits to primary production and biomass accumulation, biotic regulation of energy flow and biogeochemistry, the relationship between species diversity and stability, variations in biogeochemical behavior over time, and the effect of the weathering-erosion interaction on productivity.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0387943447
• ISBN 13: 9780387943442
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272