Visionneuse

Date_TXT

USA : Springer , 1998

Cote

551.46 BAI

Auteur

Bailey, Robert G.

Sujet

Océans; Descriptive oceanography; comprensive ; Ecosystèmes

Type de document

Livre

Description :

This book is unique in the extended treatment (see Chapters 2 and 3, and Plate 1) of oceanic ecoregions.
Ecoregions is intended to provide detailed descriptions, illustrations, and examples that will assist the user of the ecoregion maps in interpreting them. It amplifies the necessarily brief descriptions of the ecoregion units that appear in the legends to the maps. However, description without reference to genesis or origin soon becomes dull and tiresome-terms that unfortunately characterize much of the ecological literature on regions. A major objective of this book, therefore, is to suggest explanations of the mechanisms that act to produce the world pattern of ecoregion distribution, and to consider some of the implications for land use. The global extent of this book and its maps dictates that its ecoregion classification scheme be kept simple as possible, recognizing only principal ecoregion types. Where regional studies require additional detail, numerous additional subdivisions as needed can be added within an ecoregion type. For an example of detailed regional studies of ecoregions that follow this principle of creating subdivisions within the recognized world types, see Description of the Ecoregions of the United States (Bailey 1995).
Ecoregions was written for several audiences. In addition to the environmental planners and decision makers mentioned at the beginning of this Preface, I hope that the increasing visibility of scale- and system-based science in ecological and environmental research will bring this work to the attention of workers in those fields. In addition, students and instructors should find the ecoregion approach useful in courses ranging from environmental planning to biogeography and ecosystem or landscape ecology.