Towns, Ecology, and the Land. Forman, R.T.T. 2019. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. xviii+ 585 pp. £39.99 (paperback). ISBN 978‐1‐316‐64860‐5.

In its beginnings, ecology as a discipline focused mainly on the study of natural, pristine environments to understand their structure and functioning. Later on, as human impacts on the planet became more evident, the interest in anthropogenic habitats, such as agricultural landscapes or urbanized areas increased. Nevertheless, there seems to be a meeting point where natural habitats interact with productive areas and human settlements: the land of towns and villages. Despite that the land belonging to towns and villages covers an impressive half of Earth's surface (Hoekstra et al. 2010), they have been poorly investigated, as Richard Forman describes in Towns, Ecology, and the Land. The author, a Harvard University emeritus professor, is well recognized for his contributions to landscape, road, and urban ecology. He admits that only recently did he start to consider towns as more than places to eat or get fuel during fieldwork.

Villages and towns can go from a few dozen to 30,000 people, but altogether their inhabitants make up almost half the world's population. Moreover, towns provide resources for large cities, so we all depend on towns in the end. When considering these facts, it is surprising that very little attention has been paid to their ecology. In this book, the author aims to describe and summarize what is known about towns and their interactions with their surroundings from several perspectives. Furthermore, he proposes that town ecology can help to improve towns and perhaps even to stop their globally observable shrinkage.

The book is divided into 4 parts and starts with a description of the anatomy of towns and villages. Villages and towns differ in their population size, villages (200–2,000 residents) are much smaller and have a simpler structure than towns (2,000–30,000 residents). Towns have common elements, such as a central plaza, a town center, and older and newer residential areas. But they are also quite variable by their shape, location, and main economic activity or key resources. Other critical definitions that are used throughout the text are included in the first part, such as town edge, adjacent zone, and surrounding land. The adjacent zone is located immediately beyond the edge and is highly relevant because the flows that come in and out from towns are most intense there. The surrounding land is the outer area of influence of a town, and it can be dominated by farmland or natural areas. The first part of the book also covers the temporal changes experienced by townspeople and the social dimensions of living and working in towns. After all, many people, including myself, have chosen to live in towns.

The second part deals with the ecological dimensions of towns, from the soil, air, and water to plants and animals. Both soil and air in towns differ from natural, cultivated, and highly urbanized conditions. Moreover, soil and water are key resources that determine the location of a town, and specific chapters are dedicated to describing their relevance. Despite being smaller than cities, towns have to deal with pollution, particularly when industries are present, and this topic is also addressed in this section. Town flora and fauna are usually diverse and are particularly influenced by a “species rain” from the surroundings. A community of resident plants and animals is typically present in towns, and their ecology is described in detail. Not only wildlife, but also town residents, value green spaces in towns and in surrounding areas due to the different ecosystem services they provide.

The interaction between towns and land is discussed by differentiating the urbanized, agricultural, and natural components. The description of 3 major parts of towns—commercial, industrial, and residential—is quite long and makes several connections with previous parts of the book. The links between towns and farmland take place in the adjacent zone and the surrounding land and are described using concepts and examples from landscape ecology and movement ecology. The directional effects of natural land on towns and vice versa are demonstrated when these are forests or deserts. A chapter attempts to link all these components more explicitly based on corridor‐ecology concepts that explain flows of energy and organisms.

The last chapter focuses on the principles of town ecology and how to think about designing better towns. Part of this is done by summarizing the concepts described throughout the book, which leads to a list of 26 principles subdivided into different categories. Then, suggestions on how ecology can and should be incorporated into the planning of towns and their surrounding land are made. As the author says, a town does not want to be a city, and even less a village. Therefore, goals in the form of bullet points are proposed for solving environmental problems and maintaining a sustainable population level.

Even though the book is based on ecological theory and thus ecologists may be more interested in it, it also covers other perspectives and the text is clear, making it readily accessible for geographers, conservationists, and land planners. Except for a few paragraphs where lists of particular processes or patterns make reading difficult, I found the book easy to follow. There is a central plate section, where many color photographs illustrate the concepts mentioned throughout the text. Most of these photographs belong to a set of 55 population centers from all over the world that are examined and used as examples of the types of towns and villages described in the book. Both the photographs and population centers are good examples of the addressed concepts. The black and white photographs scattered throughout the text are not always sufficiently illustrative.

Is town ecology really a new discipline that differs from urban ecology or landscape ecology? The author does a good job of convincing the reader that it is, and he previously suggested principles that differentiate urban ecology from the ecology of natural areas (Forman 2016). My feeling is that we need more empirical data to determine whether the difference is large enough for us to think about town ecology as a separate field of ecology. Some general ecological patterns observed in other disciplines still apply in towns, such as species–area relationships and the negative effects of urbanization on insect communities on green roofs and yards (Sanchez Domínguez et al. 2020). But, the unique characteristics of towns, the continuous interactions of towns with adjacent areas, and the fact that a substantial part of the human population lives in towns will surely lead to interesting research findings.

城镇，生态与土地。福尔曼，RTT 2019.剑桥大学出版社，英国剑桥xviii + 585页.39.99英镑（平装）。ISBN 978-1-316-64860-5。

从一开始，生态学作为一门学科就主要研究自然的原始环境，以了解其结构和功能。后来，随着人类对地球的影响越来越明显，人们对人为栖息地（例如农业景观或城市化地区）的兴趣也增加了。然而，似乎有一个汇合点，自然栖息地与生产区和人类住区相互作用：城镇和乡村。尽管属于城镇的村庄的土地覆盖了地球令人印象深刻的一半（Hoekstra等人，2010年），但正如理查德·福曼（Richard Forman）在《城镇，生态学》和《土地》中所描述的那样，对土地的调查很少。。作者是哈佛大学名誉教授，因其对景观，道路和城市生态的贡献而广受赞誉。他承认，直到最近，他才开始将城镇视为野外工作中的饮食或加油场所。

村庄和城镇的人口可能从几十人增至30,000人，但他们的居民总数几乎占世界人口的一半。而且，城镇为大城市提供了资源，因此最终我们都依赖城镇。当考虑这些事实时，令人惊讶的是很少有人关注它们的生态。在本书中，作者旨在从多个角度描述和总结关于城镇及其与周围环境的相互作用的已知信息。此外，他提出城镇生态学可以帮助改善城镇，甚至可以阻止其在全球范围内的可观察到的萎缩。

该书分为四个部分，从描述城镇和乡村的解剖开始。村庄和城镇的人口规模不同，村庄（200-2,000居民）比城镇（2,000-30,000居民）小得多，结构简单。城镇具有共同的元素，例如中央广场，市中心和较旧和较新的居民区。但是它们的形状，位置，主要经济活动或关键资源也存在很大差异。在全文中使用的其他关键定义包括在第一部分中，例如城镇边缘，相邻区域和周围的土地。相邻区域的位置紧邻边缘，并且高度相关，因为从那里流入和流出城镇的流量最为密集。周围的土地是城镇影响的外部区域，它可以被农田或自然地区所占据。本书的第一部分还介绍了城镇居民所经历的时间变化以及城镇生活和工作的社会层面。毕竟，包括我自己在内的许多人都选择住在城镇中。

第二部分涉及城镇的生态维度，从土壤，空气，水到动植物。城镇中的土壤和空气均不同于自然，耕种和高度城市化的条件。此外，土壤和水是决定城镇位置的关键资源，专门的章节专门描述它们的相关性。尽管比城市小，但城镇仍必须处理污染，特别是在存在工业的时候，本节也讨论了这一主题。城镇动植物通常是多种多样的，尤其受到周围“种雨”的影响。城镇中通常存在常驻动植物群落，并对其生态进行了详细描述。不仅野生动植物，而且城镇居民

通过区分城市化，农业和自然要素来讨论城镇与土地之间的相互作用。城镇的三个主要部分（商业，工业和住宅）的描述很长，并且与本书的先前部分有几处联系。城镇与农田之间的联系发生在相邻区域和周围土地，并使用景观生态学和运动生态学中的概念和示例进行描述。当森林或沙漠是自然土地时，就可以证明自然土地对城镇的定向作用，反之亦然。本章试图基于解释能量和生物体流动的走廊生态学概念，更明确地链接所有这些组件。

最后一章重点介绍城镇生态学原理以及如何思考设计更好的城镇。其中一部分是通过对整本书中描述的概念进行总结来完成的，从而得出了分为26个原理的清单，这些原理又分为不同的类别。然后，提出了有关如何将生态系统纳入城镇及其周边地区规划的建议。正如作者所说，一个小镇不想成为一个城市，甚至更不想成为一个村庄。因此，提出了以项目符号形式提出的目标，以解决环境问题并维持可持续的人口水平。

即使这本书是基于生态理论的，因此生态学家可能对此更感兴趣，但它也涵盖了其他观点，并且文字清晰，使地理学家，保护主义者和土地规划师可以轻松获取。除了一些段落，这些段落中的特定过程或模式列表使阅读困难，我发现这本书很容易阅读。在中间的板块部分，许多彩色照片阐明了整篇文章中提到的概念。这些照片大部分来自世界各地的55个人口中心，这些人口中心经过检查并用作书中描述的城镇类型的示例。照片和人口中心都是上述概念的很好例子。

城镇生态学真的是不同于城市生态学或景观生态学的新学科吗？作者在说服读者这一点上做得很好，他之前提出了将城市生态学与自然地区生态学区分开的原则（Forman，2016年）。我的感觉是，我们需要更多的经验数据来确定差异是否足够大，以至于我们需要将城镇生态视为一个单独的生态领域。在其他学科中观察到的一些一般生态模式仍然适用于城镇，例如物种与区域的关系以及城市化对绿色屋顶和院子上昆虫群落的负面影响（SanchezDomínguez等人，2020年）。）。但是，城镇的独特特征，城镇与邻近地区的不断互动以及人口中很大一部分人口居住在城镇这一事实必将带来有趣的研究发现。