Developments in Agricultural and Managed-Forest Ecology Series

Containing more than 225 illustrations, this is probably the first book to cover both scientific research on trees and tree surgery. It is an authoritative work, written by a man who has had a lifetime's experience of working with trees, and as such, the book will undoubtedly appeal to a wide-ranging readership.

Extensive regions of the world have a climate which, whilst permitting development of a continuous vegetative cover, is too dry for successful annual cropping. These are the semi-arid areas where land use is based on the natural vegetation. Easily degraded and difficult to maintain, they are under increasing pressure as expanding human populations move in and endeavour to force a living from them. As a result they contain some of the worst examples of resource degradation. This book examines the problems and opportunities involved in man's use of semi-arid areas. The authors are all actively involved in research and land management in the areas discussed. Each chapter begins with a detailed, up-to-date account of the ecology of the region (its climate, soils, vegetation, fauna and main ecological characteristics). This is followed by a history of land use, problems involved in its management, a review of current research and recommended land use practices. The common features of semi-arid ecosystems are brought together in a final section.

This book is primarily addressed to workers engaged in water management and forest husbandry. It provides an overview of the problems and describes biological and engineering measures designed to improve drainage conditions in small catchment areas, protect forest land against erosion, control torrential flows, regulate the water economy of forest soils, and improve the microclimatic conditions. The thirteen chapters not only provide the reader with all the essential theoretical information, but are also supplemented by practical examples indicating solutions to typical situations. In addition, numerous diagrams and photographs are included to illustrate both theoretical considerations and the practical solutions, and several tables are added to facilitate actual computations.

For some years, workers have been investigating the possibilities of integrating knowledge from soil and atmospheric sciences, crop physiology, and genetics in order to model crop response to water stress and breed plants for drought resistance. This book turns the theory into practice. Information, gathered from recent symposia and research journals, have been built upon by the authors. Up-to-date practices are cited, new practices devised, and approaches for scientific applications specified. The authors have devised numerous examples and applications for their approaches. Attention has been given to making these approaches credible in the light of economic and energy limitations. Because application of such practice over a wide area requires wide-areal sensing and measurement, recent advances in remote sensing for these purposes are outlined with methodology for practical application. The book will be of interest to a wide readership including crop managers and producers, soil scientists, agricultural micrometeorologists, plant breeders, water managers and stress physiologists.

A change in land use has been found to alter the components of the hydrological cycle through its effects on evapotranspiration. This influences planning and management of water resources. The Workshop, from which this volume was derived, was organized in this context to discuss processes and techniques relevant to estimating evapotranspiration of communities ranging from agricultural to forested lands. Its objectives were to provide a forum for exchange of ideas, to gather up-to-date information on the state of the art, and to identify priority areas for future research. The eighteen papers in this volume have been selected from those presented at the Workshop on the basis of technical quality and subject matter coverage and result in a valuable contribution to our current understanding of evapotranspiration.

Management and Analysis of Biological Populations demonstrates the usefulness of optimal control theory in the management of biological populations and the Liapunov function in simulating an ecosystem model under large perturbations of its initial state and continual disturbances on its dynamics. The first chapter of the book introduces the topic by presenting the different models in ecology and discussing the stability concepts, the ecological engineering, and various relevant functions in ecosystem modeling. The next chapter contains a brief survey of static optimization techniques and optimal control theory for systems, which are modeled by differential and difference equations. Another chapter covers methods that use Liapunov and Liapunov-like functions to establish that a given population model is stable relative to finite perturbations of its initial state and that it is non-vulnerable relative to large continual disturbances. The book also covers fisheries and logistic modeling, including a discussion of a few management problems. Moreover, this reference considers stability in an ecosystem model with complexities due to species richness, nonlinearities, time delays, and spatial heterogeneity. Finally, it explains how to manage pests and greenhouse crops. The book is an excellent reference source for students and professionals in ecology and environmental engineering. Research professionals and extended workers in agriculture and agronomy will also find this book invaluable.

These Proceedings comprise two parts. Part I contains eight contributed papers on hydrology, fauna, soils, forests, agriculture and ecology. Part II comprises reports resulting from the five interdisciplinary workgroups whose participants included ecologists, botanists, zoologists, engineers, hydrologists, agrologists, dendrologists, resource managers and other specialists. Their aim was to evaluate conservation and management practices for wetland portions of the bottomland forests of the southeastern United States and to provide technical advice to responsible federal agencies. Thus the book is a state-of-knowledge review of scientific literature and current research, particularly that necessary to understand the effects of alterations such as forest clearing, land drainage or levee building that impair natural functions, i.e. production of timber, maintenance of water quality, flood water storage, support of migrating waterfowl and fish, carbon dioxide balance of the atmosphere etc.

This book is the result of a recommendation from the plenary session of ``TREE-PHYSINDIA-82'', an international symposium held at the Rubber Research Institute of India, Kottayam, that a publication be brought out presenting information on the methodology adopted for various physiological studies in tree crops. Containing reviews on general physiology as well as detailed information on certain selected tree crops, the choice of topics emphasizes many aspects of tree physiology. The contributed articles in Part A provide an insight into different approaches to studying the physiology of tree crops, with an emphasis on methodology. Part B provides case-histories of physiological investigations on selected economically important tropical tree crops. The volume will provide a valuable source of information and stimulus to scientists involved in the work of tree physiology.

This volume is the first publication of its kind to provide a fully comprehensive and detailed approach to the survey of microbial associations in soil: their structure and function in relation to soil fertility and environment protection. The problems covered by this title are presented on various levels of the ecological system; from subcellular phenomena occurring in the microbial cell (genetic and enzyme regulation), to processes taking place in the flow of mass and energy in the agroecosystem. The aim of this monograph is to contribute to the understanding of the laws of formation and function of microbial associations in natural and agricultural soils, and to build a scientific basis for the control of soil biological processes. Using a contemporary approach to some fields of soil microbiology, the book highlights the possibility of utilizing certain microorganisms and microbial processes to increase soil fertility and protect the environment. These critically evaluated and selected results were obtained at the Institute of Microbiology and the Institute of Experimental Phytotechnics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with the Institute of Microbiology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Owing to man-made intervention, the shrub-steppe now represents a rapidly disappearing landscape in the arid regions of North America. This book represents a systems-level study of ecological variables affecting water balance, and responses to perturbation. The study focused on a very large, protected, landscape unit, comprising a natural ``watershed'' area located in the semi-arid western United States. Long-term and concurrent data sets were established with a view towards establishing system-level responses to manipulative interventions, and natural perturbations like wildfire. These data sets were established for micrometeorology, climatology, mineral cycling in soils, nutrient and mineral pathways in springs and streams, vegetational dynamics, and population changes on the site. In synthesizing nearly twenty years of data, the more interesting ecosystem level responses concerned vegetational recovery and water balance. For instance, the synthesis uniquely demonstrates the interaction of biotic and non-biotic factors and their integrated effect on regional water balance. However, special attention was also paid to species diversity and the genetic resource pool represented at this site. This book will be of primary interest as a reference resource to land managers and wildlife specialists, and as a research study for scientists interested in systems-level ecology. Conservation-minded citizens who take more than a cursory interest in ecology will also find it interesting.

This volume contains a collection of all the papers presented at the founding conference of the European Foundation for Plant Pathology, held from 26th February to 2nd March 1990 at Wageningen, The Netherlands. It focusses on the theme of "Biotic Interactions and Soil-Borne Diseases", on which there are contributions from leading European scientists in the field of soil-borne diseases. Ways of exploiting biotic processes and phenomena which result in plant production harmless to the environment are explored.

Scientists, within a wide field, ranging from applied forestry and agriculture to physiology, ecology and the environmental sciences, are today more than ever involved in root and mycorrhizal research. New problem-oriented research fields have arisen such as the effects of fertilizers and pesticides, forest management and regeneration etc. At a time when root research is expanding into different areas, it is much more difficult for the root scientist to penetrate all the new information appearing in literature. The contributors of this volume are leading scientists from different fields of root research. The ISRR-symposium in Uppsala clearly demonstrated that there are new techniques in progress, in particular with regards to video recording of plant root systems and digital image processing. The main objectives of the symposium were (i) to provide a forum for communication between scientists from different disciplines working with root research problems, (ii) to contribute to an expansion of root studies into new areas, (iii) to use current estimates of root turnover for charting the upper and lower limit of below-ground production, and (iv) to spread knowledge of new findings and techniques of the importance of root research. This book is aimed at serving as a vehicle for improving the coherence of root research, for harmonizing methods and establishing overall objectives and gaps in the knowledge of rhizosphere dynamics.

Supplying crops with adequate nitrogen is vital to ensuring food supplies. Once nitrogen is added to the soil, it is subject to chemical transformations of the nitrogen-cycle including transformation to nitrate. Excessive amounts of accumulated nitrate may then leach out of the soil and could potentially enter and contaminate drinking water supplies. The purpose of this book is to examine the subject of nitrogen management and ground water protection. The issue of maintaining ground water quality is addressed primarily from an agronomic point of view. Topics covered include: health and economic aspects of nitrate in drinking water; nitrate sources; ground water nitrate in the USA and other developed countries; transport, leaching and accounting for nitrogen; soil, nitrogen, crop and water management; and nitrate in aquifer systems. The book contains a keyword index and is organized into thirteen chapters, each with appropriate references, tables and figures. Chapter authors are among the leading experts on the subject of nitrate and ground water quality. Readers to whom the book is directed include soil scientists and agronomists, agricultural engineers (irrigation and drainage), environmental scientists, agricultural policy makers, and hydrologists.

Throughout history, man has, by over-use, consistently reduced the productive capacity of dry lands. This degradation of one-third of the land area of the globe is, unfortunately, increasing. In recent years, world interest has turned to the problems of pollution of the environment and the impending food shortage as world population grows explosively. Thus the attention of international and other agricultural bodies has turned to the need for preserving and developing more effectively the agricultural potential of these areas. This book provides a comprehensive review of present knowledge of the agriculture of dry lands, with special emphasis on measures for conserving their natural resources. Management practices are described which aim at optimizing productivity of rainfed and irrigated agriculture without adverse effects on sustainability. Land use in the dry regions, and its evolution throughout history is described and analysed, and the lessons to be learnt from destructive technologies are stressed. In particular, current proposals for an alternative agriculture are discussed and their justification is questioned. This is a generalist work, which specialists can also find interesting, not only in their own discipline but as a concise way of acquainting themselves with the state-of-the-art in associated fields. Increasing specialisation with each discipline using its own vocabulary leads inevitably to communication problems, and the need for multi-disciplinary teams makes inter-discipline communication indispensible.

This volume presents the proceedings of the 10th international symposium Humus et Planta held in Prague in August 19-23, 1991. The main topics of this book are devoted to the recent advances in fundamental, as well as applied research of humic substances, the most abundant of the naturally occuring macromolecules of nature, the understanding of their nature and how they react and interact in their natural environments. Texts are included on the structure, physical and chemical properties of humic substances; the relationships among humus, soil properties and fertility; the biotransformations of organic substances in the soil; the relationships between humic substances and plants and the interactions of humus and xenobiotic substances. This book presents recent knowledge of the complicated and challenging humic substances. It will be of interest not only to scientist, but also to University teachers and students of agricultural and environmental sciences.

Twelve years' analysis of natural grassland and experimentally managed meadows have produced this unique set of data on the structures and physiological functions of primary producers, consumers and decomposers. Obtained during the 1973-1985 Ecosystem Study on Highland Meadows in Czechoslovakia, such original information is rare in scientific literature. The aim of the study was to define the functioning of these grasslands and their changes under different impact of man, and to examine the ecological function of those ecosystems in the intensively managed catchment area. Hence, this book contains deep analyses of soil microorganisms, their functions in decomposition and soil forming processes - leading to the evaluation of the whole carbon cycle - as well as dealing with nitrogen pathways in the experimental plots - resulting in precise determination of the full nitrogen cycle. Procedures used in practical agriculture, such as cutting, fertilization and renovation, have also been applied, producing evaluations from both ecological and economical view-points. The book's integrated ecosystem approach to grasslands, its deep professional analyses in each section, along with the synthesis on each particular level and across all levels, renders it an invaluable, informative text, comprising extensive figures and tables and a substantial bibliography of world-wide sources.

This book consists of the proceedings of a symposium organized by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome. The proceedings are unusual in that it is a rare event to see archaeologists and geneticists coming together to discuss the connection between historical facts and biological phenomena. The aim of the symposium was to discuss the origin of some important cultivated plants (wheat, maize, barley, oat, legumes and fruit trees) not only in relation to genetical mechanisms but also as a complex of historical facts recognizable through archaeological research. This international Meeting based on interdisciplinary concepts, met with a prompt and positive reaction from all those specialists invited to attend. The book itself is an unparalleled contribution to the interdisciplinary knowledge on the origin of crop plants and agriculture.