Proceedings of the First International Congress of Ecology [antikvár]

PREFACE A.J. Cavé Secretary of the Local Organizing Committee The First International Congress of Ecology has been organized by the International Association for Ecology (INTECOL) under the auspices of the Division of Environmental Biology of the International Union of Biological Sciences (TUBS). It brings together ecologists of several disciplines such as limnology, botany, zoology, microbiology and agriculture. All these specialisms have their own organizations and international meetings, often with a long tradition. They have developed scientific concepts of their own and speak to a certain degree a different language. This creates problems, especially with regard to the urgent development of ecosystems research. In ecosystems research all disciplines based on taxonomic groups or on specialisms Such as parasitism or population dynamics find a common ground. In the study of ecosystem dynamics real progress depends on mutual understanding and close cooperation. To stimulate such an integrated approach the congress of ecology sollicitated a number of main papers on "unifying concepts in ecology" which discuss notions such as energy flow, productivity, diversity, stability and maturity from different points of view. The contributions to the A-sessions report on investigations, relevant to these general themes. The purpose of the B-sessions is to bring together the results of more than a thousand research projects of the International Biological Programme, widely scattered throughout the world, in the form of general conclusions. These sessions have been organized by the IBP-organization. The C- and E-sessions comprise special symposia on important techniques such as systems analysis, remote sensing and methods of experimentation with ecosystems. Other symposia of this series deal with special branches of ecological research work, e.g. biological control, parasitic systems, aerobiology and human ecology. The participants were urged to give special attention to the contribution of these specialisms to general ecology. Concern about the fate of tropical forests resulted in a symposium on; ecological consequences of deforestation for vegetation, soil and aquatic systems in the tropics. In these proceedings the contributions to the plenary sessions are represented only in the form of abstracts. Full texts and summaries of the discussions during the congress will be published in a separate book: Unifying Concepts in Ecology.* The speakers of all other sessions have been asked to contribute to the proceedings with a full text which had to be sent in ready for reproduction in offset litho. Not all of them have succeeded to accomplish this before the closing date. The Organizing Committee acknowledges with gratitude the efforts of all those who have supported the publication of these Proceedings. We are confident they will serve to stimulate exchange of ideas and discussions during and after the congress. 1 Van Dobben, W.H.j Gradwell, G.R. (Editors); 1975. Unifying concepts In ecology. Dr W. Junk Publishers, The Hague; Pudoc, Wageningen, Netherlands, ca 250 pp. I