Forest Ecology Forest Ecology An Evidence-Based Approach Forest ecology is the science that deals with everything in forests, including plants and animals (and their interactions), the features of the environment that affect plants and animals, and the interactions of humans and forests. All of these components of forests interact across scales of space and time. Some interactions are constrained, deterministic, and predictable; but most are indeterminant, contingent, and only broadly predictable. Forest Ecology: An Evidence-Based Approach examines the features common to all forests, and those unique cases that illustrate the importance of site-specific factors in determining the structure, function, and future of a forest. The author emphasizes the role of evidence in forest ecology, because appealing, simple stories often lead to misunderstandings about how forests work. A reliance on evidence is central to distinguishing between appealing stories and stories that actually fit real forests. The evidence-based approach emphasizes the importance of real-world, observable science in forests. Classical approaches to ecology in the twentieth century often over-emphasized appealing concepts that were not sufficiently based on real forests. The vast amount of information now available on forests allows a more complete coverage of forest ecology that relies on a strong, empirical foundation. Forest Ecology: An Evidence-Based Approach is the ideal companion text for the teaching of upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in forest ecology.

Forests are alive, filled with rich, biologically complex life forms and the interrelationships of multiple species and materials. Vulnerable to a host of changing conditions in this global era, forests are in peril as never before. New markets in carbon and environmental services attract speculators. In the name of conservation, such speculators attempt to undermine local land control in these desirable areas. Moral Ecology of a Forest provides an ethnographic account of conservation politics, particularly the conflict between Western conservation and Mayan ontological ecology. The difficult interactions of the Maya of central Quintana Roo, Mexico, for example, or the Mayan communities of the Sain Ka’an Biosphere, demonstrate the clashing interests with Western biodiversity conservation initiatives. The conflicts within the forest of Quintana Roo represent the outcome of nature in this global era, where the forces of land grabbing, conservation promotion and organizations, and capitalism vie for control of forests and land. Forests pose living questions. In addition to the ever-thrilling biology of interdependent species, forests raise questions in the sphere of political economy, and thus raise cultural and moral questions. The economic aspects focus on the power dynamics and ideological perspectives over who controls, uses, exploits, or preserves those life forms and landscapes. The cultural and moral issues focus on the symbolic meanings, forms of knowledge, and obligations that people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and classes have constructed in relation to their lands. The Maya Forest of Quintana Roo is a historically disputed place in which these three questions come together.

This is a comprehensive, attractive, and readable introduction to tropical rain forest ecology, biogeography, and management. It tackles the subject at local, regional, and global scales, and is both up-to-date and fully integrated across disciplines.

Fundamental changes have occurred in all aspects of forestry over the last 50 years, including the underlying science, societal expectations of forests and their management, and the evolution of a globalized economy. This textbook is an effort to comprehensively integrate this new knowledge of forest ecosystems and human concerns and needs into a management philosophy that is applicable to the vast majority of global forest lands. Ecological forest management (EFM) is focused on policies and practices that maintain the integrity of forest ecosystems while achieving environmental, economic, and cultural goals of human societies. EFM uses natural ecological models as its basis contrasting it with modern production forestry, which is based on agronomic models and constrained by required return-on-investment. Sections of the book consider: 1) Basic concepts related to forest ecosystems and silviculture based on natural models; 2) Social and political foundations of forestry, including law, economics, and social acceptability; 3) Important current topics including wildfire, biological diversity, and climate change; and 4) Forest planning in an uncertain world from small privately-owned lands to large public ownerships. The book concludes with an overview of how EFM can contribute to resolving major 21st century issues in forestry, including sustaining forest dependent societies.

"An essential reference for forest managers, policy makers, forest scientists, and students, this authoritative volume provides a basis for silviculture practices and contemporary management of western forests."--BOOK JACKET.

Model-driven individual-based forest ecology and individual-based methods in forest management are of increasing importance in many parts of the world. For the first time this book integrates three main fields of forest ecology and management, i.e. tree/plant interactions, biometry of plant growth and human behaviour in forests. Individual-based forest ecology and management is an interdisciplinary research field with a focus on how the individual behaviour of plants contributes to the formation of spatial patterns that evolve through time. Key to this research is a strict bottom-up approach where the shaping and characteristics of plant communities are mostly the result of interactions between plants and between plants and humans. This book unites important methods of individual-based forest ecology and management from point process statistics, individual-based modelling, plant growth science and behavioural statistics. For ease of access, better understanding and transparency the methods are accompanied by R code and worked examples.