Stalfelt's Plant Ecology [antikvár]

Translators' noteProfessor Stalfelt wrote the following preface to the first Swedish edition in 1960, thus clearly emphasising his considerable perception regarding future trends in the development of ecology. Well in advance of the current widespread concern about the destructive impact of man on other organisms and on the environment, he wrote a fundamental text dealing with the interactions between plants and the environment, the main emphasis of which is on 'those aspects of plant ecology which have been or can be disturbed by man'.Professor Stalfelt treats in detail, in the classical manner, interactions between plants and environment, especially the soil environment, with particular regard to the stability of systems and their reactions to disturbance. It might be thought that in the 1970s his original text would be too dated. However, no comparable text has appeared in the English language. In presenting this detailed treatment of biological processes, Stalfelt has drawn upon a huge body of literature, especially literature of Scandinavian and German origin. This synthesis of information is as valuable now as it was then, especially to those English-speaking ecologists who are attempting to understand the functioning of ecosystems and to the University student of ecological processes, for whom this book was primarily written.In this translation, a certain amount of repetition has been removed, a few additional references added, and the statistical data brought up to date, but no comprehensive revision has been attempted. During the translation of the first chapters, Stalfelt saw and approved the English text and added material that he was proposing to include in a revised Swedish edition. Unfortunately he died in 1968, before the revision had progressed very far, and so the text closely follows that of the second edition.