Preface
Biodiversity has became some time ago one of the key notions in various fields of
human activity, from biological disciplines dealing directly with the kinds of living
beings up to strategy of sustainable development of the humankind. Such a high
rating of biodiversity theme has been resulting in publication of many books on these
subjects in the past decades.
The present book is one of them. Its content is as wide as the biodiversity itself,
beginning from the theoretical models of biodiversity and finishing with the latter’s
uses for human needs. It contains 17 chapters grouped into 5 sections, each dealing
with certain aspect of biodiversity researches and uses.
The first section,, “Models of Biodiversity”, contains several important theoretical
chapters, some of which consider the ways in which biodiversity could be thought
about, while others develop issues of more specific “biological” sound. Of particular
interest are chapters (R. Rozzi; B.P. Anthony & oth.) concerning some aspects of
interrelation between biological and socio-cultural components of the entire life on
Earth at any scale of its consideration. Noteworthy is, as well, the chapter on pretty
original “creativity theory of ecosystem” (Liu & oth.). Under consideration in this
section are also: theoretical model of relation between ecological niches and diversity
maintenance (P. Chesson), numerical model of the factors underlying avian species
imperilment in sub-Saharan Africa and Europe (R.E. Crafton & B.P. Anthony), and the
diversity turnover rate model for a beetle group undergone periodical catastrophic
impacts of forest fire (E.T. Azeria & oth.).
A small section “History of Biodiversity Researches” contains the only chapter of C.
Bradshaw & N. Sodhi reviewing in short some key publications on this subject that
appeared during the last hundred years. It allows to trace how the very understanding
of importance of biodiversity has been emerging.
The section “Evaluating biodiversity” is also small to include just one chapter describing
an approach for monitoring the conservation of regional tropical phytodiversity in India
(Giriraj A. et oth.). It is to be pointed out however that such a general issue as
biodiversity evaluation is considered, to a higher or lesser degree, in most of the chapters
in this book, as it is impossible to study and protect biodiversity without its measuring.