Biodiversity of Lianas

The scope of biodiversity science is vast. The conservation of the rich biological wealth of our planet earth, sustainable use of biodiversity resources and their wiser management become crucial and challenging. On-going global changes exert their effect on biodiversity, bio-resources and their use patterns for sustainable development as to conserve them for generations to come.

The lianas or the woody climbers form one of the fascinating groups of forest plant diversity, yet remain relatively under-researched, as compared to trees. They occur in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical forests, but particularly diverse in tropical environments, and their density is exceedingly high in dry tropics. Lianas have both positive and negative contribution in forest ecology, particularly the liana load on trees reduce tree growth and enhance tree mortality. Lianas also play important positive roles in forest functioning, contribute substantially to forest aboveground biomass and render several ecosystem services (rewarding leaf, flower and fruit resources )  to various faunal communities, and provide several goods of economic importance utilized by humans (from ropes, fruits to medicine). That being the importance of lianas in forest ecosystem, it calls for greater attention in sustainable resource use and wiser management of biodiversity and conservation for ecosystem well-being and human welfare.
This book covers chapters on original articles and reviews from regional to global level contributions from various parts of the world - from North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China, South & Southeast Asia and Australia. Many chapters address liana diversity in the context of geographical, climate and various other environmental attributes and discussed key issues on biodiversity conservation, sustainable use of bioresources and future direction of research useful for policy making and bio-resources management in years to come, realizing humandimensions in forest ecosystem.