Biodiversity in Drylands: Toward a Unified Framework

About this book

This is the first international volume in the Long Term Ecological Research Network series. The book summarizes the state of knowledge about biodiversity in drylands, and seeks to identify questions and strategies for future research and to lay out guidelines for management of biodiversity in desert and semi-desert regions. The continuing sensitivity of drylands to desertification, the fact that they occupy 40% of the world's terrestrial area, and the increasing human populations in these regions, make the understanding of their biodiversity and its changes over time of central importance.

Drylands also provide a natural laboratory to address general questions about biodiversity, ecological succession, etc., because the relative sparseness of the landscape allows one to isolate all the variables more effectively than can be done in biologically "richer" terrains.

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