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Interest in the biology of African 'wetlands' was initiated in the last century with the hypothesis that Lake Tanganyika was once part of a Jurassic sea, and was furthered by Cunnington's expedition at the beginning of this century which proved that it was not. In the late 1920's, ecological studies, encouraged by the growing importance of inland fisheries, were started hy British, French and Belgian biologists. Some twenty years later several government limnological research centres and fishery departments were established in tropical Africa, and scientific progress was accelerated. Scientific collaboration between the regions south of the Sahara was started formally in 1951 by the Scientific Council for Africa and stimulated by the International Biological Programme (1964-74) with its emphasis on biological productivity. Some of its interests were takcn on by SCOPE which recently selected continental wetlands as a Special Project; hence this book. The five authors, with-Patrick Denny as editor, have made a very valuable contribution both to science and to thc management of Africa's natural rcsourccs: thcy have filled a gap in the synthesis of knowledge about Africa's environments which is long overdue. The term 'wetland' is used today in several different contexts. For this purpose, it excludes the seas and large open inland waters. which are too deep for rooted plants, but includes the huge areas of floodplains and dambos which may change seasonally from standing water to very dry lands.
This 2001 book provides a selective annotated bibliography of the principal floras and related works of inventory for vascular plants. The second edition was completely updated and expanded to take into account the substantial literature of the late twentieth century, and features a more fully developed review of the history of floristic documentation. The works covered are principally specialist publications such as floras, checklists, distribution atlases, systematic iconographies and enumerations or catalogues, although a relatively few more popularly oriented books are also included. The Guide is organised in ten geographical divisions, with these successively divided into regions and units, each of which is prefaced with a historical review of floristic studies. In addition to the bibliography, the book includes general chapters on botanical bibliography, the history of floras, and general principles and current trends, plus an appendix on bibliographic searching, a lexicon of serial abbreviations, and author and geographical indexes.
Southern Africa is certainly not a naturally bounded area so that there are several possibilities for delineating it and concepts about its extent. Wellington* discussed the various possibilities for delineation and suggested that one line stands out more clearly and definitely as a physical boundary than any other, namely the South Equatorial Divide, the watershed between the ZaIre, Cuanza and Rufiji Rivers on the one hand and the Z ambezi, Cunene and Rovuma Rivers on the other. This South Equatorial Divide is indeed a major line of separation for some organisms and is also applicable in a certain geographical sense, though it does not possess the slightest significance for many other groups of organisms, ecosystems or geographical and physical features of Africa. The placing of the northern boundary of southern Africa differs in fact strongly per scientific dis cipline and is also influenced by practical considerations regarding the possibilities of scientific work as subordinate to certain political realities and historically grown traditions. This is illustrated, for example, in such works as the Flora of Southern Africa, where the northern boundary of the area is conceived as the northern and eastern political boundaries of South West Africa, South Africa and Swaziland. Botswana, traditionally included in the area covered by the Flora Zambesiaca, thus forms a large wedge in 'Southern Africa'.
Our understanding of the ecology of running waters has come a long way during the past few years. From being a largely descriptive subject, with a few under tones concerned with such things as fisheries, pollution or control of blackflies, it has evolved into a discipline with hypotheses, such as the River Continuum Concept (Vannote et a/. 1980), and even a book suggesting that it offers opportunity for the testing of ecological theory (Barnes & Minshall 1983). However, perusal of the literature reveals that, although some of the very early studies were concerned with large rivers (references in Hynes 1970), the great mass of the work that has been done on running water has been on streams and small rivers, and information on larger rivers is either on such limited topics as fisheries or plankton, scattered among the journals, or not available to the general limnologist. The only exceptions are a few books in this series of publications, such as those on the Nile (Rz6ska 1976), the Volga (Morduckai Boltovskoi 1979) and the Amazon {Sioli 1984), and the recent compendium by Whitton (1984) on European rivers, among which there are a few that rate as large.