Encyclopedia Of Biodiversity, 5 Vol. Set

First used in 1980, "biodiversity" often describes the abundance, variety, and genetic constitution of native animals and plants, and has been linked with politics and environmental technology. Although the 1986 National forum on biodiversity brought issues of biodiversity to the fore, the inescapable need to know more about the diversity of life on Earth continues to remain unmet.In recent years, biodiversity has influenced important scientific considerations, international agreements, conventions, conservation initiatives, political debates, and socio-economic implications. Knowledge derived from the study of biodiversity will affect the quality of life enjoyed in the future by influencing decision-making processes and aiding new discoveries.The science of biodiversity has become the science of our future. Our awareness of the loss of biodiversity has brought a long overdue appreciation of the magnitude of our loss and a determination to develop the tools to protect our future. The Encyclopedia of Biodiversity brings together, for the first time, a study of the dimensions of diversity. It examination of the services biodiversity provides, and measures to protect it. Major themes of the work include the evolution of biodiversity, systems for classifying and defining biodiversity, ecological patterns and theories of biodiversity, and an assessment of contemporary patterns and trends in biodiversity.

NEW e-updates to this 5-Volume Set on ScienceDirect!Updates include 21 entirely new articles, 22 updated articles, with 335 articles in total! (more) This reference is also sold as an e-book via ScienceDirect.

• Distinguished Editorial Board headed by Simon A. Levin, with many other prominent scientists serving as editors
• More than 300 separate articles, covering 20 different subject areas, from Evolution to Habitats to Economic Issues--all original contributions commissioned for this work
• Articles by leading authors from major institutions of science around the world
• Approximately 1,000 figures and tables complement the text
• More than 3,000 glossary entries explain key terms

Simon A. Levin is the Moffett Professor of Biology at Princeton University and the Director of the Center for BioComplexity in the Princeton Environmental Institute. Previously he was the Alexander Professor of Biology at Cornell University, Director of Cornell’s Center for Environmental Research, and the Princeton Environmental Institute. He has served as President of the Ecological Society of America and of the Society for Mathematical Biology. His principal research interests are in understanding how macroscopic patterns and processes are maintained at the level of ecosystems, socioeconomic systems, and the biosphere, in terms of ecological, behavioral and evolutionary mechanisms that operate primarily at the level of organisms.

Levin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and a Foreign Member of the Istituto Veneto. He is a University Fellow of Resources for the Future, a Fellow of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, and a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He has nearly 500 publications, and is the Editor of the Encyclopedia of Biodiversity and the Princeton Guide to Ecology. He serves on the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute, which he co-chaired from 2007-2010, and was formerly Chair of the Council of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

Levin’s awards include: the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, Margalef Prize for Ecology, the Ecological Society of America’s MacArthur and Eminent Ecologist Awards, and the Okubo Award of the Society for Mathematical Biology and the Japanese Society for Theoretical Biology