This chapter describes the composition and historical development of urban forests, how urban development shapes tree density and diversity and how herbivores and herbivory respond to these changes in urban vegetation. The pattern of the increased prevalence of exotic plants in cities, the novel...

This chapter focuses on the importance of aquatic insects for the ecological integrity and health of freshwater ecosystems. Information on the biological development of aquatic insects in various water bodies and the important roles of geology and vegetation in determining the chemistry of the...

Halophytic vegetation is very complex and diverse, and the main factors for its development are salinity and moisture. Investigations into different types of halophytic vegetation have been compiled in vegetation databases as scientific tools for classification analyses and interpretation of...

In this chapter, the damage to vegetation and the implications for human communities around the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua, is explored. Here the environmental damage is less from eruptions (a few of which have been recorded over the past 300 years) but more from the persistent volcanic degassing, ...

Dynamic modelling is a perfect tool to evaluate the outcome of assumed or observed sets of mechanisms. This chapter discusses the use of dynamic modelling in vegetation ecology.

Classifications relate vegetation ecology to practical demands of society. Revising classifications aims to improve vegetation description for applied use while enhancing their power of predicting environmental conditions. This chapter illustrates a path towards revision, performance testing and...

This chapter introduces the book with 14 chapters about understanding vegetation systems in a scientic context, a topic of vegetation ecology. It is written for researchers motivated by the curiosity and ambition to assess and understand vegetation dynamics.

This chapter discusses pattern recognition, which is a target of data analysis in vegetation ecology. Pattern recognition typically reveals not only one, but various alternative patterns emphasizing different properties of the system.

This chapter discusses 'ecological patterns' by addressing various methods of comparison, such as superimposing, correlating, variance partitioning and so on.

This chapter addresses the issue of traits as descriptors, as well as indicator values, which is considered an alternative choice for vegetation analysis. Species indicator values, intended to be a practical aid in the interpretation of plot-based vegetation data unexpectedly found their way into...