Angielski
Balkan Biodiversity is the first attempt to synthesise our current understanding of biodiversity in the great European hot spot. The conservation of biodiversity is one of today s great ecological challenges but Balkan biodiversity is still poorly understood, in a region with complex physical geography and a long history of political conflict. The Balkans exhibit outstanding levels of endemism, particularly in caves and ancient lakes such as Ohrid; lying at the crossroads of Europe and Asia they are also renowned as a focus of Pleistocene glacial refugia. This volume unites a diverse group of international researchers for the first time. Its interdisciplinary approach gives a broad perspective on biodiversity at the level of the gene, species and ecosystem, including contributions on temporal change. Biological groups include plants, mammals, spiders and humans, cave-dwelling organisms, fish, aquatic invertebrates and algae. The book should be read by zoologists, botanists, speleobiologists, palaeoecologists, palaeolimnologists and environmental scientists.
