Download Free The Role Of Fire In Mediterranean Type Ecosystems Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Role Of Fire In Mediterranean Type Ecosystems and write the review.

Explores the role of fire in Mediterranean-type climate ecosystems, providing unique insights into the assembly and evolutionary convergence of ecosystems.
The book provides a systematic review of the different applications for remote sensing and geographical information system techniques in research and management of forest fires. The authors have been involved in this field of research for several years. The book also benefits from data generated within the Megafires project, founded under the DG-XII of the European Union. A clear integration of research and experience is provided. New data gathered from fires affecting European countries between 1991 and 1997 are included as well as satellite images and auxiliary cartographic information. Geographic Information System files have been included in the attached CD-ROM depicting land cover, elevation, Koeppen classification climates and NOAA-AVHRR data of all European Mediterranean Europe at 1 sq km resolution. All these files are in Idrisi format and can be easily accessed from any GIS program. An Idrisi viewer has also been included in the CD-ROM.
Fire has been recognized as a vital agent influencing the diversity and vigor of landscapes. It is particularly important in Mediterranean ecosystems, such as those of California. This book is of interest to ecologists, policy makers, and land managers.
Wildland fires are becoming one of the most critical environmental factors affecting a wide range of ecosystems worldwide. In Mediterranean ecosystems (including also South-Africa, California, parts of Chile and Australia), wildland fires are recurrent phenomena every summer, following the seasonal drought. As a result of changes in traditional land use practices, and the impact of recent climate warming, fires have more negative impacts in the last years, threatening lives, socio-economic and ecological values. The book describes the ecological context of fires in the Mediterranean ecosystems, and provides methods to observe fire danger conditions and fire impacts using Earth Observation and Geographic Information System technologies.
The theory of ecological convergence underlies the biogeographers' maps of world biome-types. It also determines the degree to which ecological principles, derived from research on particular populations, communities or ecosystems, are generally valid, and hence also to what extent resource management principles are general. To quote Di Castri and Mooney (1973): "In effect, in order to assess the transfer of technology, it is essential to know to what extent information acquired from studying one particular ecosystem is applicable to another ecosystem of the same type but situated in a different location. " The five relatively small, isolated, mediterranean-climate zones of the earth, each with its distinct fauna and flora, have provided the ideal testing grounds for this theory. A heritage of precisely focused ecosystems research has resulted, beginning with the international comparative analyses conducted by Specht (l969a, b) but with antecedents in earlier studies in South Australia (Specht and Rayson 1957, Specht 1973). Cody and Mooney (1978) reviewed the information available at the time for the four zones excepting Australia and concluded that the arrays of strategy-types to be found among the different biotas were so similar that they could be explained only in terms of the convergence hypothesis; nevertheless, evident differences in community organization and dynamics, especially phenol ogy, required closer study of resource availability and resource-use patterns to better explain relations between form and function overall, and to assess the degree of convergence at higher levels of organization than the population.
Fire in California’s Ecosystems describes fire in detail—both as an integral natural process in the California landscape and as a growing threat to urban and suburban developments in the state. Written by many of the foremost authorities on the subject, this comprehensive volume is an ideal authoritative reference tool and the foremost synthesis of knowledge on the science, ecology, and management of fire in California. Part One introduces the basics of fire ecology, including overviews of historical fires, vegetation, climate, weather, fire as a physical and ecological process, and fire regimes, and reviews the interactions between fire and the physical, plant, and animal components of the environment. Part Two explores the history and ecology of fire in each of California's nine bioregions. Part Three examines fire management in California during Native American and post-Euro-American settlement and also current issues related to fire policy such as fuel management, watershed management, air quality, invasive plant species, at-risk species, climate change, social dynamics, and the future of fire management. This edition includes critical scientific and management updates and four new chapters on fire weather, fire regimes, climate change, and social dynamics.
This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for CaliforniaÕs remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem typeÑits distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed. Each chapter evaluates natural processes for a specific ecosystem, describes drivers of change, and discusses how that ecosystem may be altered in the future. This book also explores the drivers of CaliforniaÕs ecological patterns and the history of the stateÕs various ecosystems, outlining how the challenges of climate change and invasive species and opportunities for regulation and stewardship could potentially affect the stateÕs ecosystems. The text explicitly incorporates both human impacts and conservation and restoration efforts and shows how ecosystems support human well-being. Edited by two esteemed ecosystem ecologists and with overviews by leading experts on each ecosystem, this definitive work will be indispensable for natural resource management and conservation professionals as well as for undergraduate or graduate students of CaliforniaÕs environment and curious naturalists.
This book provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to Mediterranean-type ecosystems with the emphasis being on the organisms that dominate these regions although their management, conservation, and restoration will also be considered.
Even before the myth of Prometheus, fire played a crucial ecological role around the world. Numerous plant communities depend on fire to generate species diversity in both time and space. Without fire such ecosystems would become sterile monocultures. Recent efforts to prohibit fire in fire dependent communities have contributed to more intense and more damaging fires. For these reasons, foresters, ecologists, land managers, geographers, and environmental scientists are interested in the behavior and ecological effects of fires. This book will be the first to focus on the chemistry and physics of fire as it relates to the ways in which fire behaves and the impacts it has on ecosystem function. Leading international contributors have been recruited by the editors to prepare a didactic text/reference that will appeal to both advanced students and practicing professionals.