Plants at the Margin
Ecological Limits and Climate Change

Beautifully illustrated, thoughtful study of the effects of climate change on plants in marginal areas.

R. M. M. Crawford (Author)

9780521623094, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 March 2008

494 pages, 33 b/w illus. 366 colour illus. 13 tables
25.2 x 19.5 x 3.2 cm, 1.518 kg

'Crawford provides a clear and concise summary of the literature on this broad topic, skillfully synthesizing progress in a diversity of research fields to address two specific issues - how vegetation establishes and survives in areas where environmental conditions are outside the physiological tolerances of most plant species, and how changing environmental conditions might affect this vegetation. … All chapters are lavishly illustrated and … the numerous photographs are an excellent complement to the text. … I can highly recommend this book to all researchers with an interest in the biological impacts of climate change and/or the ecology of abiotically stressful environments.' Annals of Botany Company

Margins are by their very nature environmentally unstable - does it therefore follow that plant populations adapted for life in such areas will prove to be pre-adapted to withstand the changes that may be brought about by a warmer world? Biogeography, demography, reproductive biology, physiology and genetics all provide cogent explanations as to why limits occur where they do, and the purpose of this book is to bring together these different avenues of enquiry. Crawford's numerous beautiful illustrations of plants in their natural habitats remind us that the environment remains essential to our understanding of plants and their function. This book is suited to students, researchers and anyone with an interest in the impact of climate change on our world.

1. Recognizing margins
2. Biodiversity in marginal areas
3. Resource acquisition in marginal habitats
4. Reproduction at the periphery
5. Arctic and sub-Arctic treelines and the tundra taiga interface
6. Plant survival in a warmer Arctic
7. Land-plants at coastal margins
8. Survival at the water's edge
9. Woody plants at the margin
10. Plants at high altitudes
11. Man at the margins
12. Summary and conclusions.

Subject Areas: Earth sciences, geography, environment, planning [R], Botany & plant sciences [PST], Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]