Amazonian Floodplain Forests

Part I - Amazonian Floodplain Forests and the Environment 1. An Introduction to South American Wetland Forests: Distribution, Definitions and General Characterization 2. Development of the Amazon Valley during the Middle to Late Quaternary: Sedimentological and Climatological Observations 3. Remote Sensing of the Distribution and Extent of Wetlands in the Amazon Basin 4. Phytogeography, Species Diversity, Community Structure and Dynamics of Central Amazonian Floodplain Forests Part II - Ecological and Ecophysiological Aspects of Amazonian Floodplain Forests 5. Tree Phenology in Amazonian Floodplain Forests 6. Biochemistry of Amazonian Floodplain trees 7. The Morphology and Anatomy of Tree Roots and their Aeration Strategies 8. Fine Root Systems and Mycorrhizal Associations in Two Central Amazonian Inundation Forests - Igapó and Várzea 9. Morphology and Anatomy of Leaves 10. Gas Exchange and Photosynthesis 11. Sap Flow and Stem Respiration 12. Fruit and Seed Chemistry, Biomass and Dispersal 13. Seed Germination and Seedling Establishment of Amazonian Floodplain Trees 14. Nitrogen Balance of a Floodplain Forest of the Amazon River: the Role of Nitrogen Fixation 15. Genetic Variability, Divergence and Speciation in Trees of Periodically Flooded Forests of the Amazon: a Case Study of Himatanthus sucuuba (SPRUCE) WOODSON 16 .The Importance of Amazonian Floodplain Forests for Animal Biodiversity: Beetles in Canopies of Floodplain and Upland Forests Part III - Sustainable Management of Amazonian Floodplain Forests 17. Wood Anatomy, Tree Ring Structure of the Stem and their Importance for Tropical Dendrochronology. 18. Biomass and Net Primary Production of Central Amazonian Floodplain Forests 19. Use of Amazonian Floodplain Trees 20. Traditional Timber Harvesting in the Central Amazonian Floodplain Forests 21. Growth-Orientated Logging (GOL): The Use of Species Specific Growth Information for Forest Management in Central Amazonian Floodplains Part IV - Discussion and

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang J. Junk is the retired head of the Working Group of Tropical Ecology at the former Max-Planck-Institute for Limnology at Plön, Germany. He worked more than 40 years in the Brazilian Amazon region in cooperation with the National Amazon Research Institute (INPA) at Manaus, and 20 years in the Pantanal, an other large neotropical wetland, in cooperation with the Federal University of Mato Grosso, Brazil. He edited several books and published about 250 articles about different aspects of floodplain ecology. Prof. Junk is since 1991 corresponding member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and received many honours, among them the Brazilian Grande Cruz (1998), the International Fellow Award of the Society of Wetland Scientist's (1999), and the Cross of merit first class of the Federal Republic of Germany (2008).

Dr. Maria Teresa F. Piedade is head of the Wetlands Working Group and the MAUA group on the monitoring of Amazonian wetlands. Both groups are linked to the National Amazon Research Institute (INPA), Manaus, Brazil, where she is employed. She works on the ecology of the Amazon floodplains for more than three decades being for about 20 years the Brazilian counterpart of the cooperation between INPA and the Max-Planck-Institute for Limnology (Ploen - until 2007) and Chemistry (Mainz - from 2007 to the present). She supervised more than 50 students and published about 100 articles and book chapters on the vegetation of wetlands and its ecology. Currently she participates of several international committees as the SSC-LBA and the "Limnology in Developing Countries (Tropical Countries)" of the SIL.

Dr. Florian Wittmann, Dr. Jochen Schöngart und PD Dr. Pia Parolin have worked for many years with Prof. Junk and Dr. Piedade at INPA in Manaus and are internationally recognized experts in their specific research fields.

From the reviews:"'The first integrative book on the functioning and ecologically oriented use of floodplain forests in the tropics and the subtropics.' The book deals with ecophysiology, biodiversity, and sustainable development and is divided in three parts. ... Overall, the book covers a wide range of topics related to the biology and sustainable use of flooded Amazonian forests. ... this is a substantial volume of work on valuable and extensive forest system, with relevance to other inundated forest regions across the world." (Ernesto Medina, Biotropica, Vol. 43 (6), 2011)