The 34th European Marine Biology Symposium was held in Ponta Delgada, The Azores, between 13th and 17th September 1999. It was organised by the University of the Azores in association with the Municipal Museum of Funchal (Madeira), and the Plymouth Environment Research Centre (University of Plymouth, UK).
The selected topics, dictated by the position of the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean, were: Ecology and Evolution on Island Shores', The Open Ocean', and The Deep Ocean'. Each topic was introduced by a recognised expert of international reputation and these keynote reviews provide...

(RANKIN) of equivocation information (1-: ) and interaction information (M). The method is described in the present paper for I: and in a previous paper (Orloci, 1976) for M. The results presented in this paper suggest that for Species Rank order Information Percentage of total* species to be weighted according to their suitability to I. M I M r M characterize isolated groups of releves in a phytosociolo 5 7 54.15 2.31 17.97 0.82 gical table, the equivocation information may serve as a 9 5 49.86 23.19 16.55 8.22 3 3 9 47.79 0.56 15.86 0.20 suitable weight. The appropriate formulations are...

Holm oak (Quercus ilex L.) forests and woodlands have been considered as a paradigm for Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems. In the western part of the Mediterranean Basin, these forests and woodlands occupy large areas and thus play a very important role in the landscape. A number of research projects from the Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), the Centre de Recerca Ecologica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF), and from many other laboratories are currently focusing on Q. ilex ecosystems, and a number of problems have appeared concerning not only basic knowledge but also...

The research in this book covers papers on a great number of research projects on the responses of plants and crops of natural terrestrial ecosystems, of agro-ecosystems, and of aquatic ecosystems, to enhanced solar UV-B as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion. Some introductory chapters deal with general aspects of how plants respond to UV-B radiation.
Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) is a primary energy resource for terrestrial plants, necessary for plant growth. Inevitably terrestrial plants absorb UV-B when exposed to solar radiation. The spectral balance between PAR...

Desertification has occurred worldwide. The biophysical and socio-economic complexity of this phenomenon has challenged our ability to categorize, inventory, monitor and repair the condition of degraded lands. One of the most important distinctions to be made in relation to land degradation is between cultivated land used for annual crop production and rangelands'. Grazing by free-roaming livestock is the traditional primary use of the world's rangelands. However, there is growing recognition of the importance of these vast acreages for wildlife habitat, hydrology and ground water recharge,...

This book is the result of a symposium dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Delta Institute for Hydrobiological Research in Yerseke, the Netherlands. The primary idea did not come from one of the scientists working in this Institute, but from the second editor. Long before the Institute celebrated itsjubilee on 20-23 October 1982, he expressed his feelings to the other editors, that the time had come for a second European symposium on the ecology of coastal vegetation. The first symposium on this theme was held in Norwich, 12-16 September 1977, being the first meeting of the European...

R. K. Peet Dep. of Botany, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C. 27514, USA Robert Whittaker's contributions to ecology were many and remarkably varied. His publication record will long stand as a monument to his greatness, and whatever we do to honor him will likely be rather small in comparison. Less well known were his personal interactions and the impact they had on the development of ecology as well as individual scientists. Over the years he touched many of us and we felt not just a professional but also a deep personal loss in his passing. After his death I was contacted by...

Eddy V AN DER MAAREL This volume is the first of two volumes covering the Sym computer programmes for the rapid clustering and ordina posium 'Advances in vegetation science', which was held at tion of very large sets of reI eves and for (subsequent) table Nijmegen, The Netherlands, from 15-19 May 1979. This rearrangement (this volume as well as the book Data symposium was organized on behalf of the Working Group Processing in Phytosociology contain various new pro for Data-Processing of the International Society for Vege grams). What we do not have is a manual in which the tation Science....

Reprinted from Vegetatio 83 (1989), the 24 articles discuss such topics as the structure of theory; explanation and prediction; a new model for the continuum concept; and theories of fuzzy systems, ecological fields, and spatial and temporal dynamics of plant communities. Reports of applying and tes

The chapters in this section place the problems of vegetation and climate interactions in semi-arid regions into the context which recur throughout the book. First, Verstraete and Schwartz review desertification as a process of global change evaluating both the human and climatic factors. The theme of human impact and land management is discussed further by Roberts whose review focuses on semi-arid land-use planning. In the third and final chapter in this section we return to the meteorological theme. Nicholls reviews the effects of El Nino/Southern Oscillation on Australian vegetation...