From the Publisher:
This book explores the meta-heuristics approach called tabu search, which is dramatically changing our ability to solve a hostof problems that stretch over the realms of resource planning,telecommunications, VLSI design, financial analysis, scheduling, spaceplanning, energy distribution, molecular engineering, logistics,pattern classification, flexible manufacturing, waste management,mineral exploration, biomedical analysis, environmental conservationand scores of other problems. The major ideas of tabu search arepresented with examples that show their relevance to multipleapplications. Numerous illustrations and diagrams are used to clarifyprinciples that deserve emphasis, and that have not always been wellunderstood or applied. The book's goal is to provide ''hands-on' knowledge and insight alike, rather than to focus exclusively eitheron computational recipes or on abstract themes. This book is designedto be useful and accessible to researchers and practitioners inmanagement science, industrial engineering, economics, and computerscience. It can appropriately be used as a textbook in a masterscourse or in a doctoral seminar. Because of its emphasis on presentingideas through illustrations and diagrams, and on identifyingassociated practical applications, it can also be used as asupplementary text in upper division undergraduate courses. 

Finally, there are many more applications of tabu search than canpossibly be covered in a single book, and new ones are emerging everyday. The book's goal is to provide a grounding in the essential ideasof tabu search that will allow readers to create successfulapplications of their own. Along with the essentialideas,understanding of advanced issues is provided, enabling researchers togo beyond today's developments and create the methods of tomorrow.

Tabu Search

Preservation of natural communities has historically consisted of measures protecting them from physical disturbance. Timber harvests and livestock grazing are usually excluded from preserves, and fire suppression has been practiced—within the U.S. system of national parks, for example. Ecologists and conservationists have come to recognize, however, that many forms of disturbance are important components of natural systems. Many plant communities and species are dependent on disturbance, especially for regeneration (Pickett & White 1985). Preserves should be large enough to allow the natural disturbance regime to operate and to support a mosaic of patches in different stages of disturbance, successional recovery, and community maturation (Pickett & Thompson 1978).

http://www.myxyz.org/phmurphy/dog/DisturbanceDiversityInvasion.pdf

Disturbance, Diversity, and Invasion: Implications for Conservation

Tropical peatlands are one of the largest near-surface reserves of terrestrial organic carbon, and hence their stability has important implications for climate change1,2,3. In their natural state, lowland tropical peatlands support a luxuriant growth of peat swamp forest overlying peat deposits up to 20 metres thick4,5. Persistent environmental change—in particular, drainage and forest clearing—threatens their stability2, and makes them susceptible to fire6. This was demonstrated by the occurrence of widespread fires throughout the forested peatlands of Indonesia7,8,9,10 during the 1997 El Nino event. Here, using satellite images of a 2.5 million hectare study area in Central Kalimantan, Borneo, from before and after the 1997 fires, we calculate that 32% (0.79 Mha) of the area had burned, of which peatland accounted for 91.5% (0.73 Mha). Using ground measurements of the burn depth of peat, we estimate that 0.19–0.23 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon were released to the atmosphere through peat combustion, with a further 0.05 Gt released from burning of the overlying vegetation. Extrapolating these estimates to Indonesia as a whole, we estimate that between 0.81 and 2.57 Gt of carbon were released to the atmosphere in 1997 as a result of burning peat and vegetation in Indonesia. This is equivalent to 13–40% of the mean annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and contributed greatly to the largest annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration detected since records began in 1957 (ref. 1).

The amount of carbon released from peat and forest fires in Indonesia during 1997

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses a search for physiological causes and ecological consequence in reference with the variation in growth rate between higher plants. When grown under optimum conditions, plant species from fertile, productive habitats tend to have inherently higher relative growth rates (RGR) than species from less favorable environments. Under these conditions, fast-growing species produce relatively more leaf area and less root mass, which greatly contributes to their larger carbon gain per unit plant weight. Fast-growing species also have higher respiration rates per unit organ weight, due to demands of a higher RGR and higher rate of nutrient uptake. Fast-growing species have a greater capacity to acquire nutrients, which is likely to be a consequence, rather than the cause, of their higher RGR. This chapter analyses variations in morphological, physiological, chemical, and allocation characteristics underlying variation in RGR, to arrive at an appraisal of its ecological significance. The lower specific leaf area (SLA) of slow-growing species is because of the relatively high concentration of cell-wall material and quantitative secondary compounds, which may protect against detrimental abiotic and biotic factors. This chapter concludes that it is likely that there are trade-offs between growth potential and performance under adverse conditions, however, the current ecophysiological information explaining variation in RGR is too limited to support this contention quantitatively.

/pdf/inherent-variation-in-growth-rate-between-higher-plants-a-26yywnhi7b.pdf

Inherent Variation in Growth Rate Between Higher Plants: A Search for Physiological Causes and Ecological Consequences

Predicting the effects of anthropogenic changes in climate, atmospheric composition and land use on vegetation patterns has been a central concern of recent ecological research. This aim has revived the search for classification schemes that can be to group plant species according to their response to specified environmental factors. One way forward is to adopt a hierarchical classification, where different sets of traits are examined depending on growth form. Also, at the level of interpretation, the environmental context and purpose of functional classifications need to be specified explicitly, so that global generalizations can be made by comparing across environments functional classifications derived from similar methodologies.

Plant functional classifications: from general groups to specific groups based on response to disturbance

Tropical Rain Forest Ecosystems.

A biography of Makoto Numata.- One: General aspects of man's impact upon vegetation.- 1. Man's attitude towards vegetation.- 2. Comparing the primary productivity of natural and managed vegetation: an example from Germany.- 3. Prediction of man's impact on plant species diversity: a challenge for vegetation science.- 4. Effects of air pollution on vegetation.- 5. Human impact on aquatic macrophytes.- 6. Fire as an anthropogenic factor in vegetation ecology.- Two: Man's impact in the various vegetation zones of the earth.- 7. Human impact on tropical moist forest.- 8. Tropical grasslands, savannas, woodlands: natural and manmade.- 9. Human impact on desert vegetation.- 10. Human impact on the vegetation of the Mediterranean basin.- 11. Man and the equilibrium between deciduous forest and grassland.- 12. Grassland as natural or semi-natural vegetation.- 13. Heaths as natural and semi-natural vegetation.- 14. Human impact on closed boreal forest (taiga).- 15. Modern human impact in the Arctic.- 16. Human impact on tree borderlines.- 17. Human impact on island vegetation.- 18. Urban environments and vegetation.- Three: Long and severely influenced areas: special features of man's impact.- 19. Human impact on landscape and vegetation in the Central High Andes.- 20. Man's impact upon the flora and vegetation in Central Europe.- 21. Man and vegetation in the Middle East.- 22. Man's impact on vegetation and landscape in the Himalayas.- 23. The geographical distribution of natural and cultural vegetation in the humid subtropics of China.- 24. Secondary forests and coppices in southwestern Japan.- 25. Man's impact on the wetlands in Japan.- 26. The urban vegetation of Tokyo and Sendai, Japan.- 27. Man's impact on vegetation in Japan and Central Europe: a comparison.- Systematic index.

M. J. A. Werger

Papers

Tropical Rain Forest Ecosystems.

Man's impact on vegetation

Diversity and pattern in plant communities

Plant Form and Vegetation Structure.

The study of vegetation.