Himalayan Forests and Ecological Generalizations

Abstract

E cological measurements, as traditionally made, represent small areas. However, in response to worldwide concern about environmental quality, ecologists have expanded their focus to encompass the earth (e.g., Field et al. 1995, Frank and Inouye 1994, Neilson and Marks 1994, Wessman 1992). Analyzing and predicting processes at the scale of the biosphere require that information-including data about geographic regions and biological systems that are not well represented in widely available data basesbe integrated at the appropriate scale. To obtain the information that is required to draw conclusions at the scale of the biosphere, ecologists must make new measurements at broader scales and in regions for which data are currently sparse, must extrapolate from the existing data, or must search for less well known data that are reliable and appropriate. The first option-large-scale collection of field data-is expensive