Robert A. Mickler Libri

Five years of research carried out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Services' Northern Global Change Program, contributing to our understanding of the effects of multiples stresses on forest ecosystems over multiple spatial and temporal scales. At the physiological level, reports explore changes in growth and biomass, species composition, and wildlife habitat; at the landscape scale, the abundance distribution, and dynamics of species, populations, and communities are addressed. Chapters include studies of nutrient depletion, climate and atmospheric deposition, carbon and nitrogen cycling, insect and disease outbreaks, biotic feedbacks with the atmosphere, interacting effects of multiple stresses, and modeling the regional effects of global change. The book provides sound ecological information for policymakers and land-use planners as well as for researchers in ecology, forestry, atmospheric science, soil science and biogeochemistry.

The health and productivity of forest ecosystems in the southern United States are currently limited by temperature, precipitation and soil nutrition. In a changing global environment, these forest ecosystems face an unprecedented rate of change by additional stresses from air pollution and climatic change, including increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide, trace gases and atmospheric aerosols, and altered land use patterns.