This commemorative volume of invited papers in vegetation science covers a full range of topics, objectives, methods and applications, including conservation and management tasks. These require study at different temporal and spatial scales, often simultaneously. Methodology is important in science, since it responds to particular questions and raises others. It is also closely related to the scale of investigation. Chapters in this book illustrate this interdependence, even in basic tasks such as vegetation sampling and description, measurements and mapping. Individual chapters present globally applicable systems, regional syntheses and local analyses and applications, plus conceptual methodologies, including currently debated hot topics. Vegetation types treated include tropical rainforests, temperate forests, dry steppes and scrub and local turf, sedge and moss communities. There are also chapters on re-vegetation, woodlot management, ecology of an invasive species, and trajectory planning in conservation. This book will be useful to both students and practitioners, for its reviews and examples and as a potential textbook suitable for graduate-level courses and seminars.

Part I Global Scale.- Global Bioclimatic Zonation.- Vegetation Functional Types and Traits at Multiple Scales.- Part II.- Regional Vegetation Analysis and Synthesis.- Evergreen Broad-Leaved Forests of East Asia.- Evergreen-Deciduous Broad-Leaved Forest Ecotone in Eastern China.- Ecology of tertiary Relict Deciduous Trees in Subtropical Regions of China.- Classification of Lower-Montane Evergreen Forests in Southern India and Sri Lanka.- Dynamics of the Hawaiian Rainforest Ecosystem, a study at multiple scales.- On the Steppes and Shrub Thickets in Onon Dahuria.- Plant Diversity, Vegetation and Phytogeography of the Khorassan-Kopet Dagh Floristic Province in the Irano-Turanian Region.- The Vegetation Series of Italy and Applications in Biodiversity Conservation.- Marcescent Quercus pyrenaica Forest in the Iberian Peninsula.- Mediterranean Ultramafic (Serpentine) Chaparrals of California.- Part III.- Local Vegetation Description and Analysis.- Amphibious Vegetation in the Afro-Alpine Belt and the Role of Cryoturbation in Creating RegenerationNiches.- Large Habitat Range but Low Floristic Variation: the case of Festuco rubrae-Agrostietum capillaris 3 tables (all embedded) grasslands.- The Caricetum distichae Association in Italy.- The Vegetation of the Pie Vettore Debris (Sibillini Mountains, Central Italy).- Microtopography-Induced Differentiation of Moss Synusiae in Wet Grasslands covering a Karst Plain in Central Italy.- At What Scales and in What Vegetation Types Should we Sample Non-Vascular Plants?.- Part IV Conceptual Methodologies.- Moving from Patterns to Processes: a Challenge for the Phytosociology of the 21st Century.- A Multi-Scale Analysis of Plant Diversity along Soil Nutrient Gradients.- Part V Applied Vegetation Science.- Fallopia japonica (Japanese knotweed) in Japan: Why is it not a pest for Japanese people?.- Iberian Atlantic Forest Restoration: an experiment based in vegetation succession.- Carbon-Stock Measurement in Community Forests in Lampung Province, Sumatra.- Vegetation History and Dynamics in New Zealand - Future Scenarios and Improved Trajectories towards Restoring Natural Patterns.- Fundamentals and Perspectives of Geobotanical Research at the Beginning of the 21st Century.