A series of concise books, each by one or several authors, will provide prompt, world-wide information on approaches to analyzing ecological systems and their interacting parts. Syntheses of results in turn will illustrate the effectiveness, and the limitations, of current knowledge. This series aims to help overcome the fragmen tation of our understanding about natural and managed landscapes and water- about man and the many other organisms which depend on these environments. We may sometimes seem complacent that our environment has supported many civilizations fairly well - better in some parts of the Earth than in others. Modern technology has mastered some difficulties but creates new ones faster than we anticipate. Pressures of human and other animal populations now highlight complex ecological problems of practical importance and theoretical scientific interest. In every climatic-biotic zone, changes in plants, soils, waters, air and other resources which support life are accelerating. Such changes engulf not only regions already crowded or exploited. They spill over into more natural areas where contrasting choices for future use should remain open to our descendents-where Nature's own balances and imbalances can be interpreted by imaginative research, and need to be.

Ecology is the study of the interrelationships between organisms and their environment, including the biotic and abiotic components. There are at least six kinds of ecology: ecosystem, physiological, behavioural, population, and community. Specific topics include: Acid Deposition, Acid Rain Revisited, Biodiversity, Biocomplexity, Carbon Sequestration in Soils, Coral Reefs, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Fire Ecology, Floods, Global Climate Change, Hypoxia, and Invasion. This new book presents new research on dealing with forest ecosystems.

This volume brings together different 'schools' of ecological investigation of woodlands. After a description of the structure and floristic composition of the research sites, involving a comparison of boreal, temperate, Mediterranean and tropical forest, the study goes on to consider the dynamic aspects of the woodland formation.

Systems Analysis and Simulation in Ecology, Volume IV continues the organization begun in Volume III to document a meeting, Modeling and Analysis of Ecosystems, held at the University of Georgia on 1-3 March 1973. Several chapters are considerably expanded over their original concept, and several others are included which were not part of the symposium. The book is organized into five parts. Part I contains chapters on estuarine-marine ecosystems. Part II presents models of several terrestrial ecosystems. Part III has chapters devoted to human aspects of ecology. Part IV considers special problems of ecosystem modeling, namely linear versus nonlinear models, aggregation, and validation. Part V, the most extensive section, describes theory in ecosystem analysis. The book's chapters demonstrate the current scope of systems ecology—its past and present emphasis on parts and mechanisms in simulation modeling, and its movement toward systems analysis and new, more formal consideration of wholes in theory. They make clear that although the systems approach is young in ecology, it has substantially enriched the science both methodologically and conceptually.

Cycles, water, carbon.