Beech Forests (geobotany)

**`** A rare book lying at the interface between ecology and palaeoecology that deserves a place in the forests section of your library.**'** **The Holocene, 8:4 (1998)**

This volume compares the beech forests of eastern Asia, North America and Europe. Beech forests are important in each of these three regions. No other book covers beech on this scale.
The author has personally studied beech forests in each region, and his large body of data is the starting point for comparison. For such a world-wide comparison to be justified, factors that have most strongly influenced the beech forests should be known. First, use and management of beech forests are compared. They have influenced beech forests for millennia and have been very different in each region. Next, in a historical comparison spread and speciation since the early Tertiary are analysed. Today's beech forests cover a wide range of climates and soils; they occur in cool temperate regions as well as on tropical mountains. The final part compares the trees and forests themselves: growth and form of trees, species composition and populations, forest structure and forest dynamics.

Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-9 USE and Management....Pages 10-19 History: Spread and Speciation....Pages 20-36 The Environment of Fagus Species: Climate and Soil....Pages 37-57 Growth and Form: Beech versus Other Dominant Tree Species....Pages 58-88 Beech Forests: Woody Species Composition, Populations and Spatial Aspects....Pages 89-130 Canopy-Dynamics in Beech Forests....Pages 131-150 Synthesis and Conclusion....Pages 151-154 Back Matter....Pages 155-169 Compares the beech forests of eastern Asia, North America and Europe. This volume examines use and management of beech forests. It analyzes historical comparison spread and speciation since the early Tertiary. It also compares the trees and forests: growth and form of trees, species composition and populations, and forest structure.