An Integrative Approach to Successional Dynamics

Scott J. Meiners is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences of Eastern Illinois University where he teaches Plant Ecology, Introductory Botany and a graduate course in biostatistics. His research interests focus on the dynamics of regenerating communities using forest, grassland and successional systems, as well as the dynamics of stream fish communities and sustainable agriculture. Since 2001, he has led the Buell–Small Succession Study, the longest continuous study of post-agricultural vegetation dynamics. Steward T. A. Pickett, a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in Millbrook, New York, is an expert in the ecology of plants, vegetation dynamics, and natural disturbance. His contributions to succession are in the realm of both theory and empirical, mechanistic studies. He also directs the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, Long-Term Ecological Research program. He has edited and authored books on ecological heterogeneity, humans as components of ecosystems, conservation, the linkage of ecology and urban design, the philosophy of ecology, and ecological ethics. Mary L. Cadenasso is a Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis. She received a National Science Foundation Career award and was recently named a Chancellor's Fellow. Her research interests span landscape, ecosystem, and plant ecology and focus on determining how the spatial heterogeneity of a system is linked to ecosystem functions and change of that system. Her work has been widely published in more than 50 peer reviewed journal articles, 25 book chapters and two books.

• Acknowledgements; 1. Goals, concepts and definitions; Part I. The Conceptual Background and Development of Succession: 2. History and context of the Buell–Small Succession study; 3. Succession theory; 4. Conceptual frameworks and integration: drivers and theory; Part II. Successional Patterns in the BSS Data: 5. Community patterns and dynamics; 6. Dynamics of populations through succession; 7. Impacts of drought and other disturbances on succession; 8. Dynamics of diversity; Part III. Integrative Themes: 9. Convergence and community assembly; 10. Successional equivalence of native and non-native species; 11. Heterogeneity in dynamic systems; 12. Functional ecology of community dynamics; Part IV. Synthesis: 13. Succession, habitat management and restoration; 14. Where we stand: lessons and opportunities; Appendix 1; Appendix 2; Literature cited; Index.

'… the book is a very useful guide to the understanding of some rather complex successional theories and provides essential reading especially for early-career plant ecologists and students. For lecturers, it provides a very useful case study repository for plant succession theory lectures.' Péter Török, Bulletin of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group