The Ecology of Desert Communities (Desert Ecology Series)

Name: The Ecology of Desert Communities (Desert Ecology Series)
Brand: University of Arizona Press
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)

By Polis, Gary A.

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Desert ecosystems were described intensively during the 1960s in a series of UNESCO symposia, and they later served as a major focus of studies in the early 1970s under the International Biological Program. These latter studies resulted in a series of books on Larrea, Prosopis, and convergent evolution between Sonoran and Monte Desert communities. In recent years, however, synthetic overviews of desert ecology have lagged behind studies on other ecosystems. Only the Jornada Range in New Mexico, the sole Long Term Ecological Research site in a desert environment, has continued an active program of collaborative and integrated research. The Ecology of Desert Communities is therefore welcome. This important book fills a significant gap in previous syntheses by presenting a detailed series of reviews of current understanding of community patterns and structure in desert environments. As editor Gary Polis suggests in his preface, "we are now in a position to begin to discern how desert communities are structured. There is now a need and the time is right for a book that will synthesize the new ideas on desert communities." Polis has organized the book into 13 chapters. Integrative approaches to desert communities are most apparent in chapters on patterns and processes in desert communities, sand dune communities, and food webs in desert communities. The other chapters cover guilds of desert organisms (microarthropods/nematodes, macroarthropod detritivores, ants and termites, herbivorous insects, and predacious arthropods), and four chapters cover desert vertebrates (anurans, reptiles, birds, and mammals). Readers will note a relative lack of plant information, however, as only a single chapter on annual desert plants is present. In the preface, Polis points out the absence of a review of perennial desert plant communities. To this shortcoming I would add the lack of information on nonvascular desert plants, whose small stature is in no way indicative of the great impor

Product details

Number of Pages:: 456
Release Date:: 1991-06-01
Publication Date:: 1991-06-01
Publisher:: University of Arizona Press
Languages:: Published: English, Original: English
ISBN10:: 0816511861
Weight:: 953 g

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