The papers in this volume were presented at the Geobotany Conference held at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, on 21 February 1976. Though such diverse topics as anthropology and paleobotany are covered, all papers utilized the concept of geobotany as a unifying theme. Nearly a decade ago, the first in this series of geobotany conferences was organized on this campus by Dr. Jane Forsyth of the Department of Geology. After considerable growth, culminating in an International Geobotany Conference at the University of Tennessee in 1973, it was decided to again organize a regional geobotany meeting. The melange of papers in this volume are products of that meeting. Geobotany, by definition, is an interdiscip1inarian approach to interpretational problems involving such investigators as geologists and botanists, archaeologists and stratigraphers, ecologists and pa1yno1ogists. Interaction among these individuals is necessary for the satisfactory solution of a problem. Each can provide invaluable assistance to the other. The purpose of the meeting in Bowling Green was to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information. Sponsors of the conference include the Department of Biological Sciences, the Department of Geology, the Environmental Studies Center, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Graduate School. All of the sponsors are academic or administrative units of Bowling Green State University and each played an important role in the success of the conference.

This book contains the papers presented at the conferences of the International Association Vegetation Science of Pirenopolis (2016) on Applied Mapping for Conservation and Management: from Plant and of Palermo (2017) on Vegetation Patterns in relation to multi-scale levels of ecological complexity: from associations to geoseries. The reports refer to general themes (semiological bases of mapping, dynamic-catenal mapping, nature conservation, plant biodiversity, biogeography, and geosynphytosociology) and their application to vegetation in different parts of the world (Andes of Bolivia, California, Kaga Coast in Japan, Southeastern USA, Morocco, Europe: Carpathians mountains, Swiss Alps, Sicily, Southern Portugal, Spain, and French Atlantic coastal). One of the benefits of the book is that it offers the possibility of comparing the different methodologies used in very different types of vegetation in the world (Boreal, Mediterranean, Tropical, Neotropical, etc.). The book is intended for researchers, Ph.D. students, and university professors.

The book is concerned principally with geobotanical mapping. Geobotany is a broad science that deals with the study of species and of vegetation communities in relation to the environment; it includes other, perhaps more familiar sciences, such as plant geography, plant ecology, and chorology, and phytosociology (plant sociology). Geobotanical cartography is a field of thematic cartography that deals with the interpretation and representation, in the form of maps, of those spatial and temporal phenomena that pertain to flora, vegetation, vegetated landscapes, vegetation zones, and phytogeographical units. The production of a geobotanical map represents the last stage in a cognitive process that begins with observations in the field and continues with the collection of sample data, interpretation of the phenomena observed, and their appropriate cartographic representation; geobotanical cartography is closely tied to the concepts and scope of geobotany in general