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Ecosystem functioning /
"In the face of decreasing biodiversity and ongoing global changes, maintaining ecosystem functioning is seen both as a means to preserve biological diversity as well as for safeguarding human well-being by securing the services ecosystems provide. The concept today is prominent in many fields...
| Clasificación: | Libro Electrónico |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Electrónico eBook |
| Idioma: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Cambridge ; New York :
Cambridge University Press,
2010.
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| Colección: | Ecology, biodiversity, and conservation.
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| Temas: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Texto completo |
| Sumario: | "In the face of decreasing biodiversity and ongoing global changes, maintaining ecosystem functioning is seen both as a means to preserve biological diversity as well as for safeguarding human well-being by securing the services ecosystems provide. The concept today is prominent in many fields of ecology and conservation biology, such as biodiversity research, ecosystem management, or restoration ecology. Although the idea of ecosystem functioning is important, the concept itself remains rather vague and elusive. This book provides a novel analysis and integrated synthesis of different approaches to conceptualising and assessing ecosystem functioning. It links the natural sciences with methodologies from philosophy and the social sciences, and introduces a new methodology for a clearer and more efficient application of ecosystem functioning concepts in practice. Special emphasis is laid on the social dimensions of the concept and the ways it influences research practice. Several case studies relate theoretical analyses to practical application"-- "Concern about the functioning of the world's ecosystems has become commonplace, in the scientific literature as well as in everyday parlance. Climate change, loss of biological diversity, chemical pollution, land use changes, and the spread of exotic species are all discussed in connection with the perceived or anticipated degradation or destruction of ecosystems, or at least with an impairment of their functioning. While attention has been focused in the past mostly on the fate of specific processes relevant to human life (such as clean water or the maintenance of food production) or specific valued species, the emphasis has shifted increasingly towards a broader perspective, namely that of the whole ecosystem. Since about the early 1990s, ecosystems and their functioning have become major targets of conservation and management, accompanied by biodiversity as the other major broad-scale conservation focus. Today, both conservation aims are embodied in national and international management strategies, such as the variety of ecosystem management approaches (e.g. Yaffee et al., 1996; Boyce and Haney, 1997) or the Convention on Biological Diversity (including also an 'Ecosystem Approach' as a cross-cutting issue), and the various regional and national strategies are still newly developed"-- |
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| Descripción Física: | 1 online resource (xiv, 272 pages) : illustrations, maps |
| Bibliografía: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781139568913 1139568914 1139572474 9781139572477 6613950084 9786613950086 1283637626 9781283637626 9780511781216 0511781210 9781139570725 1139570722 1316088251 9781316088258 1139579304 9781139579308 1139573292 9781139573290 1139569813 9781139569811 |