Biodiversity in Land/Inland Water Ecotones (Man and the Biosphere Series, 15)

This is a high-level scientific text and reference work on the properties of land-water ecotones and their role in maintaining local, regional, and global biological diversity. It reviews current knowledge of the subject, explains the importance of land-water ecotones in maintaining biodiversity and the factors controlling biodiversity, identifies the role of biodiversity in the functioning of transition systems between ecosystems as well as the main scientific issues for future research leading to the development of a general theory of biological diversity, and examines the impact of human activity on land-water ecotones. The book's eleven chapters cover microbiological diversity, plant diversity, invertebrate biodiversity, bird diversity, mammal diversity, and ecotonal biodiversity and sustainability in tropical landscapes.