Despite their often dangerous and unpredictable nature, landslides provide fascinating templates for studying how soil organisms, plants and animals respond to such destruction. The emerging field of landslide ecology helps us understand these responses, aiding slope stabilisation and restoration and contributing to the progress made in geological approaches to landslide prediction and mitigation. Summarising the growing body of literature on the ecological consequences of landslides, this book provides a framework for the promotion of ecological tools in predicting, stabilising, and restoring biodiversity to landslide scars at both local and landscape scales. It explores nutrient cycling; soil development; and how soil organisms disperse, colonise and interact in what is often an inhospitable environment. Recognising the role that these processes play in providing solutions to the problem of unstable slopes, the authors present ecological approaches as useful, economical and resilient supplements to landslide management.
• The first synthesis of landslide ecology, providing a valuable resource for all those concerned with the prediction, management and restoration of unstable slopes • Explores organisms that colonise landslides and how they interact to increase landscape-level biodiversity – a concern for all conservationists • Covers nutrient cycling; soil development; and the dispersal, colonisation, interaction and biodiversity of plants, animals and soil microbes; integrating these features into efforts that can manage slopes at both local and landscape scales
Contents
Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Spatial patterns; 3. Physical causes and consequences; 4. Biological consequences; 5. Biotic interactions and temporal patterns; 6. Living with landslides; 7. Large scales and future directions for landslide ecology; Glossary; References; Index.
Printer friendly version