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The Flowering of Australia’s Rainforests Edition 2

Pollination Ecology and Plant Evolution

Hardback
September 2021
9781486314270
More details
  • Publisher
    CSIRO Publishing
  • Published
    30th September 2021
  • ISBN 9781486314270
  • Language English
  • Pages 288 pp.
  • Size 8" x 10"
  • Images 150 color plates
$110.99

The Flowering of Australia’s Rainforests provides a comprehensive introduction to the pollination ecology, evolution and conservation of Australian rainforest plants, with particular emphasis on subtropical rainforests and their associated pollinators. This significantly expanded second edition includes new information on the impact of climate change, fire, fragmentation and invasive species.

Rainforests continue to be a focus of global conservation concern, not only from threats to biodiversity in general, but to pollinators specifically. Within Australia, this has been emphasized by recent cataclysmic fire impacts, ongoing extreme drought events, and the wider consideration of climate change. This second edition strengthens coverage of these issues beyond that of the first edition.

The Flowering of Australia’s Rainforests makes timely contributions to our understanding of the nature and function of the world’s pollinator fauna, plant-reproduction dependencies, and the evolutionary pathway that has brought them to their current state and function. Illustrated with 150 color plates of major species and rainforest formations, this reference work will be of value to ecologists and field naturalists, botanists, conservation biologists, ecosystem managers and community groups involved in habitat restoration.

Features:

  • Gives an overview of the pollination ecology of Australia’s rainforests in a world rainforest context.
  • Provides an introductory review of plant evolution and plant-pollinator relationships.
  • Covers pollination syndromes and the role and function of pollinator groups.
  • Discusses the pollination ecology of threatened subtropical rainforests, including impacts from climate change, fragmentation, fire and invasive species.
  • Serves as a companion volume to The Invertebrate World of Australia’s Subtropical Rainforests.

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction

1: Categorising rainforest plants
2: Rise of the angiosperms, and archaic vascular plants in Australia’s rainforests
3: Being a flower
4: Introduction to breeding systems
Colour plates
5: Spatial and temporal structure of rainforest: general mechanisms that influence pollination and reproductive ecology
6: Australian vegetation history and its influence on plant–pollinator relationships
7: Pollination and the Australian flora
8: Pollination syndromes: who brings the ‘flower children’ in rainforest?
9: Pollination ecology of Australian subtropical rainforests: implications for the conservation of remnant communities

Appendix 1: Case studies of pollination in the Australian rainforest flora
Appendix 2: Large insects and their place in the scheme of things
Appendix 3: Generalised pollen groups based on exine sculpture
Appendix 4: Captions to photographs
Appendix 5: Divisions of geologic time

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Geoff Williams

Geoff Williams, OAM, AM is a pollination ecologist, conservation biologist and entomologist with a PhD from the University of New South Wales, and a Research Associate of the Australian Museum. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his contributions to science and biodiversity conservation. He is the author of The Invertebrate World of Australia’s Subtropical Rainforests and The Flowering of Australia’s Rainforests: Pollination Ecology and Plant Evolution.

plants; rainforest; ecology; Australia; climate change; conservation; botany; pollination