Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Sciences has just published "The boreal forest and global change" compiled and edited by KE Ruckstuhl, EA Johnson and K Miyanishi. See http://publishing.royalsociety.org/boreal-forest for further details. The print version of this publication is available to ECOLOG list members at the discounted price of £47.50 (instead of £59.50).
The circumpolar boreal biome contains 33% of the Earths forest cover as well as a large proportion of the worlds natural wetlands and peatlands. Since this biome is located at the latitudes where the greatest warming is predicted to occur over the next 50 years, it may be the most greatly affected by climate change. Furthermore, because of its slow decomposition rates and large areas of waterlogging, this biome contains a vast store of carbon in its soils and peat deposits. Since retreat of the last continental glaciers, the boreal biome has provided a net sink for atmospheric carbon. With warming temperatures increasing decomposition rates and potentially drying some of the boreal wetlands, this biome is likely to become a net source of atmospheric carbon. This would result in a positive feedback that would continue to increase the problem of greenhouse warming. The papers in this issue address a wide range of environmental changes, both potential and already apparent, in the boreal biome such as changes in streamflow, treeline position, disturbance regime, carbon cycling, large animal populations, forest management, and landuse. Many of these changes are linked to large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns such as the Arctic Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The conclusion from many of these studies is that these changes will result in a re-assembling of the boreal biome into something different than its current state; furthermore, the changes will not be uniform across the circumpolar boreal but will vary regionally. Please note that the specially discounted price is only available by contacting Debbie Vaughan at the Royal Society direct ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) or by contacting Portland Customer Services (quoting reference TB 1501) using the contact details on the Portland Press website at http://publishing.royalsociety.org/boreal-forest. Felicity Davie On behalf of the Royal Society
