The Changing Wildlife of Britain and Ireland

by Hawksworth, David

• ISBN13: 9780748409570
• ISBN10: 0748409572
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-03-30
• Publisher: CRC

Summary

Periodic comprehensive overviews of the status of the diverse organisms that make up wildlife are essential to determining trends, threats and future prospects. Just over 25 years ago, leading authorities on different kinds of wildlife came together to prepare an assessment of their status of a wide range of organisms in Great Britain and Ireland in The Changing Flora and Fauna of Britain, also edited by Professor David L. Hawksworth CBE. Now, in The Changing Wildlife of Great Britain and Ireland, he has gathered together some of the original and also new contributors to review changes since that time and look to the future. Contributions range from viruses, diatoms, fungi, lichens, mites and nematodes; through butterflies, dragonflies, flies and slugs; to flowering plants, ferns, mammals, birds and fish. The state of knowledge in different groups is assessed, and the effectiveness of statutory and other measures taken to safeguard wildlife considered. The picture is far from bleak, ameliorating sulphur dioxide levels have benefited sensitive lichens and mosses in a dramatic way, water quality improvement has been beneficial, there have been few certain extinctions and rediscoveries of species thought to have been lost. Biodiversity Action Plans have also benefited targeted species, but habitat restoration and management for some is not always good for others. But there are worrying trends in declining populations, with an increasing number being regarded as threatened or endangered, especially in agricultural areas, and where woodland management has changed, particular threats from introduced species, and concern over the effects of climate change. Some of the smaller organisms remain poorly known, a situation unlikely to change as expertise in many is scant or being lost. This stock-check and look to the future will be a key source book to conservationists, naturalists, and professional biologists for many years to come.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	viii
Foreword	xi
Sir John Burnett
Fifty years of statutory nature conservation in Great Britain	1	(22)
Earl of Cranbrook
Flowering plants	23	(27)
Timothy C. G. Rich
Ferns and allied plants	50	(28)
Christopher N. Page
Mosses, liverworts and hornworts	78	(25)
Anthony J. E. Smith
Larger fungi	103	(11)
Roy Watling
Microscopic fungi	114	(12)
Paul F. Cannon
Paul M. Kirk
Jerry A. Cooper
David L. Hawksworth
Lichens	126	(22)
Brian J. Coppins
David L. Hawksworth
Francis Rose
Terrestrial and freshwater eukaryotic algae	148	(2)
David M. John
Allan Pentecost
Brian A. Whitton
Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)	150	(2)
Brian A. Whitton
S. J. Brierley
Diatoms	152	(12)
Elizabeth Y. Haworth
Viruses	164	(11)
Roger T. Plumb
J. Ian Cooper
Protozoa	175	(13)
Bland J. Finlay
Freshwater invertebrates	188	(22)
John F. Wright
Patrick D. Armitage
Nematodes	210	(20)
Brian Boag
David J. Hunt
Mites and ticks	230	(9)
Anne S. Baker
Flies	239	(23)
Alan E. Stubbs
True bugs, leaf- and planthoppers, and their allies	262	(38)
Peter Kirby
Alan J. A. Stewart
Michael R. Wilson
Butterflies and moths	300	(28)
Richard Fox
Grasshoppers, crickets and allied insects	328	(12)
Judith A. Marshall
Dragonflies and damselflies	340	(15)
Stephen J. Brooks
Land slugs and snails	355	(12)
Robert A. D. Cameron
Ian J. Killeen
Birds	367	(32)
David W. Gibbons
Mark I. Avery
Mammals	399	(11)
Gordon B. Corbet
D. W. Yalden
Fishes	410	(12)
Alwyne Wheeler
Tracking future trends: the Biodiversity Information Network	422	(13)
Keith Porter
Prospects for the next 25 years	435	(12)
David L. Hawksworth
Subject index	447	(4)
Systematics Association publications	451