Plant Disturbance Ecology: The Process and the Response, Second Edition

Plant Disturbance Ecology: The Process and the Response, Second Edition, is fully updated and clearly presents how scientists can use a multitude of approaches in plant disturbance ecology. Chapters on fire and beavers from the previous edition were combined into more extensive and inclusive chapters covering disturbance. There are new chapters on windstorms, droughts, and tree uprooting. All chapters from the first edition have been updated to include the latest research. Edited and written by leading experts in the field, this second edition is an essential resource for scientists interested in understanding plant disturbance and ecological processes.

Disturbance ecology is still an active area of research and there have been many advances in new areas. One emerging direction in disturbance studies is the increased coupling of physical and ecological processes, and not just their forcing. Disturbances are increasingly traced back further in space and time to mechanisms that are causing the disturbances themselves (e.g., earth surface processes and mesoscale and larger meteorological processes), and the ecological effects being studied are becoming more physiological.

Contents: 

1. Disturbance and Succession 2. The Turbulent Wind in Plant and Forest Canopies 3. New Chapter on Windstorms and Blowdowns (title TBA) 4. Understanding How the Interaction of Wind and Trees Results in Windthrow, Stem Breakage, and Canopy Gap Formation 5. New Chapter on Disturbance by Tree Uprooting (title TBA) 6. Meteorological Conditions Associated with Ice Storm Damage to Forests 7. New Chapter on Drought (title TBA) 8. The Effect of Icing Events on the Death and Regeneration of North American Trees 10. Coastal Dune Succession and the Reality of Dune Processes 11. Fluvial Geomorphic Disturbances and Life History Traits of Riparian Tree Species 12. Water Level Changes in Ponds and Lakes: The Hydrological Processes 13. Development of Post-Disturbance Vegetation in Prairie Wetlands 14. New Chapter on Fire (title TBA) 15. Insect Defoliators as Periodic Disturbances in Northern Forest Ecosystems 16. Relationship Between Spruce Budworm Outbreaks and Forest Dynamics in Eastern North America 17. New Chapter on Beaver Disturbance (title TBA)