Communities and Ecosystems: Linking the Aboveground and Belowground Components

The book has been covered in contact and there is an ownership signature on the front end paper, solid and unmarked. Monographs in Population Biology No. 34 edited by Simon A. Levin and Henry S Horn. vii, 392 pages. "Most of the earth's terrestrial species live in the soil. These organisms, which include many thousands of species of fungi and nematodes, shape aboveground plant and animal life as well as our climate and atmosphere. Indeed, all terrestrial ecosystems consist of interdependent aboveground and belowground compartments. Despite this, aboveground and belowground ecology have been conducted largely in isolation. This book represents the first major synthesis to focus explicitly on the connections between aboveground and belowground subsystems--and their importance for community structure and ecosystem functioning. David Wardle integrates a vast body of literature from numerous fields--including population ecology, ecosystem ecology, ecophysiology, ecological theory, soil science, and global-change biology--to explain the key conceptual issues relating to how aboveground and belowground communities affect one another and the processes that each component carries out. He then applies these concepts to a host of critical questions, including the regulation and function of biodiversity as well as the consequences of human-induced global change in the form of biological invasions, extinctions, atmospheric carbon-dioxide enrichment, nitrogen deposition, land-use change, and global warming. Through ambitious theoretical synthesis and a tremendous range of examples, Wardle shows that the key biotic drivers of community and ecosystem properties involve linkages between aboveground and belowground food webs, biotic interaction, the spatial and temporal dynamics of component organisms, and, ultimately, the ecophysiological traits of those organisms that emerge as ecological drivers. His conclusions will propel theoretical and empirical work throughout ecology." (back cover) CONTENTS: 1. Introduction; 2. The Soil Food Web: Biotic Interactions and Regulators; Controls: Top Down, Bottom Up, and Productivity; Regulation by Resources and Predation in Soil Food Webs; Litter Transformers, Ecosystem Engineers, and Mutualisms; Links among Plant Species, Soil Biota, and Soil Processes; The Functionality of Soil Food Webs; Stability and Temporal Variability; Synthesis; 3. Plant Species Control of Soil Biota and Processes; Plant Species Effects on Soil Biota; Temporal and Spatial Variability. Plant Traits, Strategies, and Ecophysiological ConstraintsSoil Biotic Responses to Vegetation Succession; Synthesis; 4. Belowground Consequences of Aboveground Food Web Interactions; Individual Plant Effects; Dung and Urine Return; Effects of Palatability Differences among Plant Species; Spatial and Temporal Variability; Consequences of Predation of Herbivores; Transport of Resources by Aboveground Consumers; Synthesis; 5. Completing the Circle: How Soil Food Web Effects Are Manifested Aboveground; The Decomposer Food Web; Nitrogen Transformations; Microbial Associates of Plant Roots. Root HerbivoresPhysical Effects of Soil Biota; Soil Biotic Effects on Aboveground Food Webs; Synthesis; 6. The Regulation and Function of Biological Diversity; Assessment of Soil Diversity; Stress and Disturbance as Controls of Soil Diversity; Biotic Controls of Diversity; The Enigma of Soil Diversity; Diversity of Soil Organisms over Larger Spatial Scales; Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function; Synthesis; 7. Global Change Phenomena in an Aboveground-Belowground Context; Species Losses and Gains; Land Use Changes; Carbon Dioxide Enrichment and Nitrogen Deposition; Global Climate Change.…