In North America, concepts of Historical Range of Variability are being employed in land-management planning for properties of private organizations and multiple government agencies. The National Park Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and The Nature Conservancy all include elements of historical ecology in their planning processes. Similar approaches are part of land management and conservation in Europe and Australia. Each of these user groups must struggle with the added complication of rapid climate change, rapid land-use change, and technical issues in order to employ historical ecology effectively. Historical Environmental Variation in Conservation and Natural Resource Management explores the utility of historical ecology in a management and conservation context and the development of concepts related to understanding future ranges of variability. It provides guidance and insights to all those entrusted with managing and conserving natural resources: land-use planners, ecologists, fire scientists, natural resource policy makers, conservation biologists, refuge and preserve managers, and field practitioners. The book will be particularly timely as science-based management is once again emphasized in United States federal land management and as an understanding of the potential effects of climate change becomes more widespread among resource managers. Additional resources for this book can be found at: www.wiley.com/go/wiens/historicalenvironmentalvariation.

This book discusses the historic range of variation (HRV) in the types, frequencies, severities and scales of natural disturbances, and explores how they create heterogeneous structure within upland hardwood forests of the Central Hardwood Region (CHR). The book was written in response to a 2012 forest planning rule which requires that national forests to be managed to sustain ‘ecological integrity’ and within the ‘natural range of variation’ of natural disturbances and vegetation structure. Synthesizing information on HRV of natural disturbance types, and their impacts on forest structure, has been identified as a top need.

The Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology presents theoretical discussions, methodological outlines, and case-studies describing the field of overlap between historical ecology and the emerging sub-discipline of applied archaeology to highlight how modern environments and landscapes have been shaped by humans. Historical ecology is based on the recognition that humans are not only capable of modifying their environments, but that all environments on earth have already been directly or indirectly modified. This includes anthropogenic climate change, widespread deforestations, and species extinctions, but also very local alterations, the effects of which may last a few years, or may have legacies lasting centuries or more. With contributions from anthropologists, archaeologists, human geographers, and historians, this volume focuses not just on defining human impacts in the past, but on the ways that understanding these changes can help inform contemporary practices and development policies. Some chapters present examples of how ancient or current societies have modified their environments in sustainable ways, while others highlight practices that had unintended long-term consequences. The possibilities of learning from these practices are discussed, as is the potential of using the long history of human resource exploitation as a method for building or testing models of future change. The volume offers overviews for students, researchers, and professionals with an interest in conservation or development projects who want to understand what practical insights can be drawn from history, and who seek to apply their work to contemporary issues.

Outlines the ecological fundamentals, assumptions, and techniques for reconstructing past environments using fossil animals from archaeological and paleontological sites.

Ecological restoration is a rapidly evolving discipline that is engaged with developing both methodologies and strategies for repairing damaged and polluted ecosystems and environments. During the last decade the rapid pace of climate change coupled with continuing habitat destruction and the spread of non-native species to new habitats has forced restoration ecologists to re-evaluate their goals and the methods they use. This comprehensive handbook brings together an internationally respected group of established and rising experts in the field. The book begins with a description of current practices and the state of knowledge in particular areas of restoration, and then identifies new directions that will help the field achieve increasing levels of future success. Part I provides basic background about ecological and environmental restoration. Part II systematically reviews restoration in key ecosystem types located throughout the world. In Part III, management and policy issues are examined in detail, offering the first comprehensive treatment of policy relevance in the field, while Part IV looks to the future. Ultimately, good ecological restoration depends upon a combination of good science, policy, planning and outreach – all issues that are addressed in this unrivalled volume.

Short, compelling, but mostly thought-provoking essys that encompass many of the central issues shaping ecology and conservation in the changing world Collected essays from one of the best known ecologists and conservationists in the world Includes all issues at the cutting edge of the interface between ecology and conservation Attractive to a broad audience of ecologists, conservationists, natural resource managers, policy makers, and naturalists

This book describes the emergence of landscape ecology, its current status as a new integrative science, and how distinguished scholars in the field of landscape ecology view the future regarding new challenges and career opportunities. Over the past thirty years, landscape ecology has utilized development in technology and methodology (e.g., satellites, GIS, and systems technologists) to monitor large temporal-spatial scale events and phenomena. These events include changes in vegetative cover and composition due to both natural disturbance and human cause—changes that have academic, economic, political, and social manifestations. There is little doubt, due to the temporal-spatial scale of this integrative science, that scholars in fields of study ranging from anthropology to urban ecology will desire to compare their fields with landscape ecology during this intellectually and technologically fertile time. History of Landscape Ecology in the United States brings to light the vital role that landscape ecologists will play in the future as the human population continues to increase and fragment the natural environment. Landscape ecology is known as a synthesized intersection of disciplines; but new theories, concepts, and principles have emerged that form the foundation of a new transdiscipline.