Fundamentals and Perspectives of Geobotanical Research in the Twenty-First Century

authored by: Richard Pott
Abstract: Geobotany or Vegetation Science is the discipline that attempts to document and understand spatial and temporal patterns of diversity in the world of plants and vegetation. Diversity has evolved into a key word in ecological but also geobotanical research, and so the introductory part draws attention to some aspects of biodiversity: The present-day biodiversity of the earth is reflected from a palaeoecological viewpoint. The natural diversity of climate, geodiversity and biodiversity constitute the treasures of the present global ecosystems. So, biodiversity is a concept of different aspects: Structural biodiversity of life forms, functional biodiversity of ecosystems and production, and evolutionary diversity of long-term and short-term evolution. We share our planet Earth with countless other creatures—today about 1.75 million species of animals, plants and microorganisms are registered, and we know that many more species exist: perhaps between 10 and 100 million species. However, a portion will go extinct before even being discovered. We use uncountable services of nature in our daily lives: air, water, soil, food and energy for our existence—absolutely for free. By the destruction and overexploitation of natural habitats by human activity, the number of today’s known species on earth decreased by about 40 % between 1970 and 2000: a decline of nearly a half in just 30 years! This led to the creation of the term “The Sixth Extinction” to describe the crisis on our planet. With that background, some aspects of global problems in the twenty-first century are discussed and, finally, the role that Geobotanical research could play at the beginning of this new century is outlined.
Organisation(s): Institute of Geobotany
Type: Contribution to book/anthology
Pages: 529-548
No. of pages: 20
Publication date: 2016
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Ecology, Plant Science
Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 13 - Climate Action
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21452-8_24 (Access: Closed)