Biologisk mangfoldighed

Phocid (or earless or true) seals are ecologically diverse, occupying habitats from the tropics to the poles in marine and freshwater and feeding on anything from tiny zooplankton to other marine mammals. There are 18 species of phocid seals, the smallest species (ringed seal) is more than 20 times smaller than the largest (southern elephant seal), with marked sexual dimorphism present in some species. This book examines the behavior, ecology, and physiology that allow phocid seals to inhabit such a wide range of habitats. The book is composed of 16 chapters written by 37 authors from 8 countries. The book first describes the general patterns of phocid behavior, followed by descriptions of what is known about well-studied species. We have taken a holistic approach, focusing not only on the behaviors themselves but also on the factors that constrain the expression of behavior and the proximate mechanisms driving behavior. In many cases, the chapters represent collaborations between well-established researchers and early-mid career individuals who bring new perspectives to help carry the field of phocid behavioral ecology well into the future.

The ability to sense and react-to external environment is a crucial element of life. Transformationof environmental stimuli to organismal response involves complex computationswhich become increasingly sophisticated as an organism is higher up the tree of life. Inthe animal kingdom, starting from lower level phyla except for Porifera, the elements involvedin these computations show a functional organization to form the nervous systemwith varying degree of complexity, possibly, to increase the repertoire and efficiency of thestimulus-response transformation. Given the dynamic nature of the external environment,it is crucial that animals should be able to associate novel environmental stimuli to appropriateresponses, and also reconfigure the existing stimuli-response transformations in thelight of newer environmental realities. "Learning" encapsulates these abilities of an organismto create novel association or update existing associations. One of the various formsof learning is reward learning and it is fundamental to several animal behaviors. In rewardlearning, if a stimulus or a stimulus-response pair is followed by a rewarding experiencethen its perceived salience increases and this results in an association between the stimulus,response and the reward. Using such associations built upon past experiences, an organismcould predict a possible reward if a specific stimulus is present in a given environmentalcontext and how it should respond to achieve this reward. In other words, reward learning isa process of creating or updating stimuli-response transformations that is guided by rewardas a teaching signal.

This book discusses current knowledge and challenges with the ecological management and conservation of wetlands, with a focus on the East Kolkata Wetlands of India. This area is referred to as a Ramsar Site, a designation given to areas with special protection statuses, since it is the largest natural waste recycling system in the world. The site faces many threats to its biodiversity and ecosystem functioning due to anthropogenic activity in the region, and therefore an assessment of the ecosystem services, bio-ecological uniqueness, and issues stemming from climate change and human impacts is needed to develop protection strategies for the future ecological functioning and sustainability of the wetlands. The authors use GIS and remote sensing techniques to assess and monitor harmful industrial and environmental impacts on the wetlands, and to inform mitigation and conservation strategies in the face of ongoing threats such as pollution, habitat destruction and bioinvasion. Thebook also highlights various social and economic aspects tied to the functioning and management of the wetlands, along with ecological, biological, and physio-chemical considerations. The study will be of use to students and researchers in aquatic ecology, biodiversity, and environmental sustainability and conservation, as well as to environmental planners, engineers, and policymakers.

Of the world's seven continents, Asia is the largest. Its physical landscapes, political units, and ethnic groups are both wide-ranging and many.  Southwest, South and Middle Asia are highly populated regions which, as a whole, cover an extremely large area of varied geography. In total, this domain is unique in its plant diversity and large vegetation zones with different communities and biomes. It is rich in endemics, with specific and intraspecific diversity of fruit trees and medicinal plants, including a number of rare, high value, species. At the same time, much of the land in the region is too dry or too rugged, with many geographical extremes. Overgrazing, oil and mineral extraction, and poaching are the major threats in the area.This two-volume project focuses on the dynamic biodiversity of the region with in-depth analysis on phytosociology, plants, animals and agroecology.  There are also chapters that explore new applications as well as approaches to overcome problems associated with climate change. Much of the research and analysis are presented here for the first time.  We believe this work is a valuable resource for professionals and researchers working in the fields of plant diversity and vegetation, animal diversity and animal populations, and geo-diversity and sustainable land use, among others.The first volume guides our readers to West Asia and the Caucasus region, while volume two focuses on issues unique to South and Middle Asia.

The shift of weather patterns has affected the incidence and prevalence of infectious diseases, including mycoses. Mycoses have remained neglected due to a lack of training and recognition within the medical community. Nonetheless, these diseases remain common worldwide while frequently being underdiagnosed. Climate change affects the distribution of fungal communities, provoking outbreaks in locations where these mycoses were absent or in low frequencies. Moreover, the reports of clinical cases related to new fungal pathogens have increased due to the description of new fungal species or due to the ability of some species to shift to new hosts. Thus, this book, The Impact of Climate Change on Fungal Diseases, is a contribution to the knowledge of a global environmental phenomenon and its relation to these diseases, and it serves as a guide for health professionals to dive deep into the repercussions of climate changeand how they can implement measures for the prevention and control of fungal infections.

This volume is a monograph of the genus Diplusodon (Lythraceae), written by the world authority on this plant group. Diplusodon is a monophyletic genus of shrubs and subshrubs, with showy, 6-merous, actinomorphic flowers, and floral tubes on which the sepals alternate with conspicuous epicalyx segments. The capsular fruit contains winged seeds and, uniquely for the family, is divided by a bipartite placenta with two semi-lunate septa. Diplusodon is the second largest genus in the Lythraceae and occurs mostly in the Cerrado Biome, the floristically diverse savannah that covers more than two million km2 of the Central Brazilian Plateau, extending west into Bolivia, south to Paraguay and east to the Caatinga. A total of 104 species and eight varieties are recognized in the genus, for which 46 lectotypes, one neotype, one new status and one new combination are designated, nine new species are described, and 15 taxaare placed in synonymy. New information on floral and vegetative morphology, pollen, cytology, chemistry, floral biology, and habitat are provided for the genus. In addition, keys to the species are accompanied by descriptions, illustrations, distribution maps, and assignment of conservation status.

This book presents perspective on the importance of natural and cultural relationships for conserving bio-cultural landscapes. It explores the approaches and concepts used to conserve bio-cultural landscapes in Malaysia and Indonesia. The book highlights the importance of bio-cultural landscape in sustainable development framework and its link to sustainable development goals are also included. It fills the gap in literature with special focus on this region. The book is of interest to teachers, researchers, climate change scientists, conservationists, capacity builders and policymakers. Also it serves as additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of ecology, and environmental sciences. National and international environmental scientists, policy makers also find this to be a useful read.

This open access book. provides a synthesis of six projects, across ten countries, each of which have been sustained for two or more decades, and which illustrate how success can be achieved regardless of systems of governance, of a nation¿s wealth, or of culture. Detailed narratives are presented on the key personalities that have conceived, conducted and concluded long-term projects: personal stories of vision, failure, frustration and persistence ultimately leading to success.The case studies vary widely in their geography and goals. The single-handed commitment to re-discover the last surviving populations of Giant Sable in the miombo woodlands of central Angola, through the capture, translocation and establishment of robust breeding herds of this magnificent antelope, contrasts with the massively funded, three-decade programme with over one hundred participants that reversed the annual loss to predation by feral cats of 455 000 seabirds from a sub-Antarctic island. Similarly, the foresight of Zimbabwean and Namibian ecologists to place rural communities at the centre of conservation programmes by giving value to wildlife populations and benefits to local people, transformed a land degradation problem to a socio-ecological solution. Across ten countries, building capacity in botanical collection, documentation and herbarium management expanded into a global project to place the knowledge base of Africäs flora onto an electronic data system accessible to researchers and conservation planners in even the most remote corners of the continent. None of these projects enjoyed immediate results. Each required leadership skills that combined vision, a generosity of spirit, fortuitous timing and the exploitation of unexpected opportunities.

This edited volume examines how to develop a planning and design process with green infrastructure that creates technical answers to the social and ecological function of the city¿s climate change adaptations demands. In this context, it proposes a process that engage the values linked to the art and culture of the place, capable of generating adoption by the population and promoting the right to landscape.Since the nineteenth century, many theoretical and practical experiences have integrated urban and environmental issues, revising the understanding of nature as an object and thinking of nature and culture in conjunction. However, consensus of the methodological strategies needed to guide the development of multi-scale landscape planning and design capable of responding to the climate emergency, heritage, water, biodiversity and social inclusion, among other issues has not been achieved. Green infrastructure has emerged as a tool to link considerations of theplanning and design process to examine the impact urban nature can have at a global and a local scale.The book gathers together authors from different parts of the world and disciplines to showcase conceptual thinking, best practices and methodological strategies relating to landscape planning and design with green infrastructure adapted to climate change. The topic of this book is particularly relevant to scholars, practitioners and developers around the world who have an interest in planning and environmental management, landscape architecture, and socio-cultural understandings of landscape.

As a history, human reality is choiceless mimic to nature's reality by its placement, inventiveness, creativity, and the compression of its localized space and time within a much broader system of existence.This collection of essays creatively elaborates topics such as evolution, environmental diversity, the nature of time, the finite and infinite worlds, instinctive awareness, perspective human history, the complexion of light, the Arts of the particle, niche viewpoints of reality, the misrepresentation of information, the normalization of personality and, among other things, the sustained thriving of systemic challenges in a present world normally and visibly persuaded by its past values.Systems, Nature and Niche Realities.

This book presents recent research work on Biosaline Agriculture presented during First International Forum on Biosaline Agriculture in Laayoune, Morocco from May 3rd to May 4th 2019. The aim of this book is to showcase the global potential of Biosaline agriculture, provide an update on the development of recent innovations in the field of Biosaline agriculture, the best management practices to safely use brackish and saline water, highlight the use of non-conventional water in marginal environment production and the current advanced technologies of desalination of brackish and seawater. The different chapters will also discuss solutions that are adapted to local conditions as part of a sustainable development perspective. The book provides up-to-date technical and scientific data on growing crops under marginal environment so as to encourage the dissemination of this knowledge in the best practices to increase the productivity in Biosaline agriculture, in view of the potential to contribute to food security. The book is expected to stimulate interest in the non-conventional water resources and crops among junior and senior researchers and among those who are increasingly focused on exploiting marginal environments. It will also be of interest to decision-makers and the public and private sectors to jointly address the issues of food security especially of the poor and vulnerable people living in marginal environments worldwide by providing innovative technology transfer.

The resilience of food systems and security to emerging challenges and threats, especially in the context of environmental and climate risks and global pandemics such as the Covid-19 crisis, is currently gaining growing importance in research, policy, and practice. Based on this, the core focus of this book, as a part of a series of CERES publications, consists of identifiying and exploring the best ways to overcome such challenges and shocks and to build resilience in the Global South. More precisely, the book analyzes current dynamics and trends related to the climate resilience of food security and assess the relevance of emerging approaches such as climate-smart agriculture, new roles of agriculture extension, smart farming, and climate adaptation of farming systems.The book includes both conceptual and empirical research reporting lessons learned from many geographical, environmental, social, and policy settings while focusing on Africa, Middle East, and Asia. It also provides research and policy-oriented inputs and recommendations to guide change processes at multiple scales.

Bidong Island is a small island located in the South China Sea, and is about 14 km from mainland Peninsular Malaysia. The island and the Bidong archipelago boast of its richness in diversity of both terrestrial and marine organisms and its undeniably pristine and thriving ecosystem. In 1975-1990, Bidong Island was formerly a UNHCR refugee camp for a quarter of a million Vietnamese "e;Boat people"e; escaping the Vietnam War, and still holds great significance to many of its descendants. Due to its historical significance, the Terengganu State government plans to develop Bidong Island as a heritage tourism site and a new scuba diving destination.This book highlights the uniqueness of Bidong Island and its archipelago, paying particular attention to the biological aspect (which includes marine and terrestrial organisms) and the pollution status surrounding the island. These mainly focus on organisms of the open water and benthic ecosystems such as plankton, fishes, corals reef communities, crustaceans and foraminifera. In addition, we discuss terrene related topics, which includes tree diversity, lichens and also herpetofauna surrounding the Bidong Island. Indisputably an important topic, we also address the pollution status surrounding Bidong Island, with emphasis on heavy metals and its impact.Readers interested in the areas of environmental sciences should find this book appealing. This book can also be used by students and researchers when discussing about tropical environments on island ecosystems. We do hope that stakeholders that would partake in future interest of Bidong Island (particularly in tourism) are equally aware of the current health status of the island and would engage in conserving and sustaining the diversity and heritage of the archipelago for the benefit of the community. 

This book represents an introduction to ecoacoustics theory, to the application of the Acoustic Complexity Indices (ACIs) to acoustic survey, and to the use of an innovative software to process acoustic data. It enables readers to comprehend the main principles that guide the recent development of ecoacoustics and offers a synthesis about the role of sound in the ecological research.Readers will be introduced to the use of the ACIs by a detailed description of the main algorithms recently formulated and on their correct application in the acoustic processing concurring to the creation of sonic information systems. Readers will also find a new dedicated software application, namely SonoScape, that is described in detail with its codes attached in the supplementary material in a completely visible format. The SonoScape is a performing software application operating in MatLab(R) and is enriched of several options to manage single and large collection of acoustics files. It vides the feasibility to process data at different temporal scale, using different combination of parameters, and to extract novel complexity measures such as entropy and fractal dimension of ecoacoustic events. It also offers functions to visualize the results using customized 3-D plots or ternary plots, intuitively demonstrating the patterns of ACIs based on the vast number of numerical results.Finally, this book provides several examples of case studies with the aim of better understanding the potentiality of ACIs and the power of SonoScape as multitasking software to approaching the complexity of the ecoacoustic investigation.Students and scholars in ecology, land managers and technicians may find an important tool to interpret the complex relationship between humans and natural processes when sounds are adopted as proxy.

Was man nicht verworten kann, kann man auch nicht beschreiben, nicht erklären und erst nicht verstehen, geschweige denn emotional begreifen.Sogar Menschen, die sich täglich mit Klimakrise, Massenaussterben und Gesellschaftskrise auseinandersetzen, gelingt es oft nicht, ihr Anliegen in knappe Worte zu fassen und angemessen zu beschreiben, wo wir Menschen ökologisch und planetar gesehen derzeit stehen. Bereits der Begriff Klimaschutz erzählt die falsche Geschichte: Wir Menschen müssen nicht das Klima schützen, sondern uns selbst, unsere Mitmenschen, unsere Kinder sowie sämtliche nachfolgenden Generationen. Und alles Lebendige auf diesem Planeten. Denn ohne das web of life, d. h. ohne das Netz des Lebens, das wir Menschen im Falle eines Weiter so absehbar unwiderruflich zerstören, ist alles nichts. Wir Menschen befinden uns folglich in einer existenziellen Krise. Ein neues Vokabular, ein neues Begriffsfeld und eine bewusst eingesetzte Wortwahl können helfen, die Debatte um die Überlebenskrise der Menschheit emotional und argumentativ zu verschlanken.Mit der Handreichung SPRACHE MACHT ZUKUNFT legen Dr. Wolfgang Lührsen (Mitglied im Vorstand des BUND Hamburg) und Dr. Marc Pendzich (Autor des Handbuch Klimakrise), eine Sammlung von Begriffen, Inspirationen und Hinweisen zu Argumentationen vor. Ziel ist es, dass interessierte Menschen künftig leichter und ablenkungsfreier als bisher in wenige präzise Worte fassen können, was Sache ist.Sprache hat Macht. Also macht Sprache Zukunft. Die Diskussion ist eröffnet. Weitere Vorschläge sind willkommen unter https://sprache-macht-zukunft.de

Le climat se réchauffe, la France s'est engagée à réduire ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre lors des Accords de Paris, et pourtant, celles-ci continuent de croître.Damien Dubois à découvert, au détours de ses lectures, que planter des arbres, beaucoup d'arbres, contribue à rafraîchir le climat et absborbe du carbone. Qu'à celà ne tienne! Un héritage? Il finance la plantation d'arbres. Un livre vendu? Encore des arbres!Preuves à l'appui, l'auteur nous démontre qu'il est possible d'agir pour le climat même avec un petit budget. Lui, il fait sa part. Et vous?

"An introduction to the biodiversity of ancient lakes, explaining the surprising, often controversial findings ancient lake research is yielding about the formation and persistence of species"--

Through this book, the readers will learn about the different aspects of Actinobacteria- beginning with its ecology and occurrence, to the ways of its adaptation to harsh climates, and finally to its practical applications. The book also presents methods of identifying and characterizing this diverse group of bacteria through advanced techniques like MALDI-TOF, 16S rRNA analysis, etc. Different chapters describe the various biotechnological applications of Actinobacteria, including bioremediation, secondary metabolite production, and in producing antibiotics, anti-cancer therapeutics. It also provides insights into the applications in agriculture and forestry by inhibiting plant pathogenic bacteria's growth.

The book covers various biotechnological research efforts and their applications in fisheries and aquaculture, especially in the area of fish breeding, health management, nutrition and culture. Application of the recent biotechnological tools, like Transcriptomics, Transgenesis, Nanotechnology, Metabolomics, RNAi and CRISPRi Technologies in the field of fisheries research are included in the book. Topics like conservation genetics for management of fishery resources are also covered in the book. It aims at addressing the growing need of the biotechnology in advancing the cause of aquaculture with a view to provide food and nutritional security to the world. This book will be of immense use to teachers, researchers, academicians, development officials and policymakers, involved in R&D of fisheries and aquaculture sectors. Also, the book serves as an additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of fisheries, marine sciences, ecology, aquaculture, and environmental sciences. The research in aquaculture biotechnology is likely to have significant impact on aquaculture and fisheries by way of supporting nutritional food security to the growing population.

This book investigates the potentialof nature based technology for shapingthe evolution of contemporary architectureand design. It takes on the now pervasivetopic of design intelligence, extending itsdefinition to encompass both biologicaland digital realms.

This book provides insight into the use of molecular and genomic techniques to the study of populations of critically important species at various geographical scales. It delves into a wide range of issues relevant to biodiversity conservation, such as population differentiation, landscape genomics, ecological interactions, phylogenetics, phylogeography, metagenomics, molecular methods, and data processing. The current rate of biodiversity loss is unprecedented and valuable genetic resources are being lost at an alarmingly rate. Effective strategies to conserve these genetic resources are essential to maintain healthy ecosystems with inter-dependent species. The book is an invaluable resource for training undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and for young researchers. This book is particularly useful for the policy makers and academics who want to learn about important concepts in population and conservation genetics and genomics.

This book introduces the Chinese boletes, including the history, ecological and economic values, as well as the geographical distribution patterns with a highlight on the Tylopilus species. Species in Tylopilus s.l. are not only of important ecological values but also of scientific interests. They are very diverse in morphology, complex in structure and wide in ecological niches. China is one of the diverse hotspots of boletes, and many boletes were traditionally treated as members of Tylopilus based on hymenophore or spore-print colour. The studies revealed that the traditionally defined Tylopilus is polyphyletic. This book aims to elucidate the phylogenetic relationships among the genera treated in Tylopilus s.l. previously; to delimit and recognize the taxa, and finally to reveal the diversity of the genera and species of Tylopilus s.l. in China. The book is intended to be a reference for biologists who conduct investigations of biological resources and biodiversity; university and college teachers and students carrying out studies in related fields; mycologists and amateur mycologists, or people who interested in mushrooms taxonomy and systematics; and workers in the development of non-timber forest products.

This book aims to synthesize the state of the art on biodiversity knowledge exchange practices to understand where and how improvements can be made to close the knowledge-implementation gap in conservation science and advance this interdisciplinary topic. Bringing together the most prominent scholars and practitioners in the field, the book looks into the various sources used to produce biodiversity knowledge - from natural and social sciences to Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Citizen Science - as well as knowledge mobilization approaches to highlight the key ingredients that render successful conservation action at a global scale. By doing so, the book identified major current challenges and opportunities in the field, for different sectors that generate, mobilize, and use biodiversity knowledge (like academia, boundary organizations, practitioners, and policy-makers), to further develop cross-sectorial knowledge mobilization strategies and enhance evidence-informed decision-making processes globally.