Abstract
Until the mid-Pleistocene the earth’s biota evolved and formed communities and ecosystems without man as a constituent or as an influent. Today no part of the biosphere is free of man’s effects, great or small. Even on the high, icy plateau of the South Pole, there is the same rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide as on Mauna Loa in Hawaii. This new carbon dioxide is derived mainly from the burning of fossil fuels by industrial peoples.
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Billings, W.D. (1983). Man’s Influence on Ecosystem Structure, Operation, and Ecophysiological Processes. In: Lange, O.L., Nobel, P.S., Osmond, C.B., Ziegler, H. (eds) Physiological Plant Ecology IV. Encyclopedia of Plant Physiology, vol 12 / D. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-68156-1_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-68156-1_17
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