At the risk of merely adding to the bloated and growing literature available on the disciplines of ecology and management while making little meritorious contribution to either, this book attempts to bridge the gap between these literatures and disciplines. As with most books, there are few data and concepts in this text that have not been recorded previously. However, ecology and management have not always been explicitly linked, although each discipline can benefit from the other.

There are many ways that one could link applied ecology to the management of natural resources. Our approach is to focus on plant ecology, and to use this discipline as a foundation for vegetation management. Plant ecology and vegetation management are, in turn, critically important to animal ecology and wildlife management; in many cases, wildlife managers practice vegetation management more directly than they actually “manage” wildlife populations. This additional step – connecting ecologically based vegetation management to wildlife ecology and management – is also frequently recognized but seldom described explicitly, even though it is widely acknowledged that each enterprise can, and does, benefit from the other. Our approach is to use the wealth of information on plant ecology as a basis for the management of both plant and animal populations and natural communities. This book should be especially useful to wildlife ecologists and managers, as it will give insight into the concepts and approaches that plant ecologists use to examine plant communities.