-- Ecology

Enclosed ecosystem experiments have gained in popularity as research tools in ecological science, particularly in the study of coastal aquatic environments. These systems provide scientists with a degree of experimental control that is not achievable through field experiments. Yet to date, techniques for systematically extrapolating results from small-scale experimental ecosystems to larger, deeper, more open, more biologically diverse, and more heterogeneous ecosystems in nature have not been well developed. Likewise, researchers have lacked methods for comparing and extrapolating information among natural ecosystems that differ in scale. Enclosed Experimental Ecosystems and Scale: Tools for Understanding and Managing Coastal Ecosystems provides scientists, managers, and policy makers with an introduction to what has been termed the "problem of scale", and presents information that will allow for improved design and interpretation of enclosed experimental aquatic ecosystems. The book integrates the results of a 10-year research project involving a multi-disciplinary team of scientists and students to explore scale-related questions in a variety of coastal habitats. Anticipating use as a reference, the book has been designed so that individual sections and individual pages can function as stand alone units.

"We compared northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis atricapillus) nesting habitat within 1 ha of nest sites and at landscape scales of 10, 30, 60, 83, 120, 150, and 170 ha in 4 studies areas east of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington. Our objective was to describe goshawk nesting habitat at biologically relevant scales and to develop models capable of assessing the effects of forest management alternatives on habitat suitability"--Page 1.

The ever-changing nature of ecosystems is richly illustrated by long-term ecological research. In many cases, long-term change is interpreted as a shift from one dynamic regime to another: oligotrophic to eutrophic, grassland to woodland, before versus after the top predator was lost. This book is about such ecological regime shifts.