Mapping the world's vegetation

Vegetation, the plant content of an area, is a fundamental component of the natural environment on the land surface of the earth. It converts energy into food and is therefore at the base of the food chain, making vegetation a key link in natural ecosystems integrating climate, soil, and living organisms. By identifying and analyzing distinct frontiers both in vegetation formation and in world flora, this book confirms that a set of formation types and distinctive floristic realms exist. This makes possible for the first time rigorous definitions for formation types and for specific floristic realms. More important than the clarification of boundaries is the examination of causative factors which is facilitated by the demonstration of distinct categories. Thus, probable causes for the origin of distinct vegetation formation types and floristic realms are offered in this book. Such a fresh examination of the regionalization of vegetation of the world scale helps to put world vegetation mapping on a more satisfactory scientific basis, a goal of major significance to geographers. Environmentalists and ecologists will be especially interested in the research finding that the same vegetation structure recurs again and again among unrelated assemblages of plants in remote parts of the wold. verifying the fact that vegetation formations are distinct kinds of ecological systems