Download or read book Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution written by Thomas N. Sherratt and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-02-20 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we age? Why cooperate? Why do so many species engage in sex? Why do the tropics have so many species? When did humans start to affect world climate? This book provides an introduction to a range of fundamental questions that have taxed evolutionary biologists and ecologists for decades. Some of the phenomena discussed are, on first reflection, simply puzzling to understand from an evolutionary perspective, whilst others have direct implications for the future of the planet. All of the questions posed have at least a partial solution, all have seen exciting breakthroughs in recent years, yet many of the explanations continue to be hotly debated. Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution is a curiosity-driven book, written in an accessible way so as to appeal to a broad audience. It is very deliberately not a formal text book, but something designed to transmit the excitement and breadth of the field by discussing a number of major questions in ecology and evolution and how they have been answered. This is a book aimed at informing and inspiring anybody with an interest in ecology and evolution. It reveals to the reader the immense scope of the field, its fundamental importance, and the exciting breakthroughs that have been made in recent years.
Download or read book Unsolved Problems in Ecology written by Andrew Dobson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume provides a series of essays on open questions in ecology with the overarching goal being to outline to the most important, most interesting or most fundamental problems in ecology that need to be addressed. The contributions span ecological subfields, from behavioral ecology and population ecology to disease ecology and conservation and range in tone from the technical to more personal meditations on the state of the field. Many of the chapters start or end in moments of genuine curiosity, like one which takes up the question of why the world is green or another which asks what might come of a thought experiment in which we "turn-off" evolution entirely"--
Download or read book Improbable Destinies written by Jonathan B. Losos and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new book overturning our assumptions about how evolution works Earth’s natural history is full of fascinating instances of convergence: phenomena like eyes and wings and tree-climbing lizards that have evolved independently, multiple times. But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change—a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze—caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role does each force really play in the constantly changing natural world? Are the plants and animals that exist today, and we humans ourselves, inevitabilities or evolutionary flukes? And what does that say about life on other planets? Jonathan Losos reveals what the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary biology can tell us about one of the greatest ongoing debates in science. He takes us around the globe to meet the researchers who are solving the deepest mysteries of life on Earth through their work in experimental evolutionary science. Losos himself is one of the leaders in this exciting new field, and he illustrates how experiments with guppies, fruit flies, bacteria, foxes, and field mice, along with his own work with anole lizards on Caribbean islands, are rewinding the tape of life to reveal just how rapid and predictable evolution can be. Improbable Destinies will change the way we think and talk about evolution. Losos's insights into natural selection and evolutionary change have far-reaching applications for protecting ecosystems, securing our food supply, and fighting off harmful viruses and bacteria. This compelling narrative offers a new understanding of ourselves and our role in the natural world and the cosmos.
Download or read book Am I a Monkey written by Francisco J. Ayala and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brief, incisive, topical, authoritative, Am I a Monkey? will take you a day to read and a lifetime to ponder.
Download or read book Foundations of Ecology written by Leslie A. Real and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-12-20 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assembled here for the first time in one volume are forty classic papers that have laid the foundations of modern ecology. Whether by posing new problems, demonstrating important effects, or stimulating new research, these papers have made substantial contributions to an understanding of ecological processes, and they continue to influence the field today. The papers span nearly nine decades of ecological research, from 1887 on, and are organized in six sections: foundational papers, theoretical advances, synthetic statements, methodological developments, field studies, and ecological experiments. Selections range from Connell's elegant account of experiments with barnacles to Watt's encyclopedic natural history, from a visionary exposition by Grinnell of the concept of niche to a seminal essay by Hutchinson on diversity. Six original essays by contemporary ecologists and a historian of ecology place the selections in context and discuss their continued relevance to current research. This combination of classic papers and fresh commentaries makes Foundations of Ecology both a convenient reference to papers often cited today and an essential guide to the intellectual and conceptual roots of the field. Published with the Ecological Society of America.
Download or read book Ecology and Ecosystem Conservation written by Oswald J. Schmitz and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meeting today’s environmental challenges requires a new way of thinking about the intricate dependencies between humans and nature. Ecology and Ecosystem Conservation provides students and other readers with a basic understanding of the fundamental principles of ecological science and their applications, offering an essential overview of the way ecology can be used to devise strategies to conserve the health and functioning of ecosystems. The book begins by exploring the need for ecological science in understanding current environmental issues and briefly discussing what ecology is and isn’t. Subsequent chapters address critical issues in conservation and show how ecological science can be applied to them. The book explores questions such as: • What is the role of ecological science in decision making? • What factors govern the assembly of ecosystems and determine their response to various stressors? • How does Earth’s climate system function and determine the distribution of life on Earth? • What factors control the size of populations? • How does fragmentation of the landscape affect the persistence of species on the landscape? • How does biological diversity influence ecosystem processes? The book closes with a final chapter that addresses the need not only to understand ecological science, but to put that science into an ecosystem conservation ethics perspective.
Download or read book Fundamental Processes in Ecology written by David M Wilkinson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-09-13 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fundamental Processes in Ecology presents a way to study ecosystems that is not yet available in ecology textbooks but is resonant with current thinking in the emerging fields of geobiology and Earth System Science. It provides an alternative, process-based classification of ecology and proposes a truly planetary view of ecological science. To achieve this, it asks (and endeavours to answer) the question, "what are the fundamental ecological processes which would be found on any planet with Earth-like, carbon based, life?" The author demonstrates how the idea of fundamental ecological processes can be developed at the systems level, specifically their involvement in control and feedback mechanisms. This approach allows us to reconsider basic ecological ideas such as energy flow, guilds, trade-offs, carbon cycling and photosynthesis; and to put these in a global context. In doing so, the book puts a much stronger emphasis on microorganisms than has traditionally been the case. The integration of Earth System Science with ecology is vitally important if ecological science is to successfully contribute to the massive problems and future challenges associated with global change. Although the approach is heavily influenced by Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, this is not a popular science book about Gaian theory. Instead it is written as an accessible text for graduate student seminar courses and researchers in the fields of ecology, earth system science, evolutionary biology, palaeontology, history of life, astrobiology, geology and physical geography.
Download or read book The Big Questions written by Francisco Ayala and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Biologist s Guide to Mathematical Modeling in Ecology and Evolution written by Sarah P. Otto and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 745 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years ago, biologists could get by with a rudimentary grasp of mathematics and modeling. Not so today. In seeking to answer fundamental questions about how biological systems function and change over time, the modern biologist is as likely to rely on sophisticated mathematical and computer-based models as traditional fieldwork. In this book, Sarah Otto and Troy Day provide biology students with the tools necessary to both interpret models and to build their own. The book starts at an elementary level of mathematical modeling, assuming that the reader has had high school mathematics and first-year calculus. Otto and Day then gradually build in depth and complexity, from classic models in ecology and evolution to more intricate class-structured and probabilistic models. The authors provide primers with instructive exercises to introduce readers to the more advanced subjects of linear algebra and probability theory. Through examples, they describe how models have been used to understand such topics as the spread of HIV, chaos, the age structure of a country, speciation, and extinction. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists today need enough mathematical training to be able to assess the power and limits of biological models and to develop theories and models themselves. This innovative book will be an indispensable guide to the world of mathematical models for the next generation of biologists. A how-to guide for developing new mathematical models in biology Provides step-by-step recipes for constructing and analyzing models Interesting biological applications Explores classical models in ecology and evolution Questions at the end of every chapter Primers cover important mathematical topics Exercises with answers Appendixes summarize useful rules Labs and advanced material available
Download or read book Evolution and the Big Questions written by David N. Stamos and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-02-11 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolution and the Big Questions “David N. Stamos’s Evolution and the Big Questions delivers what its title promises—you get to look at all of the issues, such as race and ethics and religion, that make the study of evolution so interesting, and more than just a science. The book is written in a clear and friendly manner and deserves a very wide readership.” Michael Ruse, Florida State University This provocative text considers whether evolutionary explanations can be used to clarify some of life’s biggest questions. It offers a lively, informative, and timely look at a wide variety of key issues facing all of us today—including questions of race, sex, gender, the nature of language, religion, ethics, knowledge, consciousness, and, ultimately, thc meaning of life. Some of the questions examined are: Did evolution make men and women fundamentally different? Is the concept of race merely a social construction? Is morality, including universal human rights, a mass delusion? Can religion and evolution really be harmonized? Docs evolution render life meaningless? Designed for students and anyone with an interest in the relationship between evolutionary heritage and human nature, the text takes an interdisciplinary approach and offers direction for further reading and research. Each chapter presents a main topic, together with discussion of related ideas and arguments from various perspectives. Along the way, it poses life’s biggest questions, pulling no punches, and presenting a challenge to thinkers on all levels.
Download or read book The Knowledge Machine How Irrationality Created Modern Science written by Michael Strevens and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise.” —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex A paradigm-shifting work, The Knowledge Machine revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. • Why is science so powerful? • Why did it take so long—two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics—for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? In a groundbreaking work that blends science, philosophy, and history, leading philosopher of science Michael Strevens answers these challenging questions, showing how science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Like such classic works as Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine grapples with the meaning and origins of science, using a plethora of vivid historical examples to demonstrate that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature. “With a mixture of philosophical and historical argument, and written in an engrossing style” (Alan Ryan), The Knowledge Machine provides captivating portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in science’s history, including Isaac Newton, the chief architect of modern science and its foundational theories of motion and gravitation; William Whewell, perhaps the greatest philosopher-scientist of the early nineteenth century; and Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of the quark. Today, Strevens argues, in the face of threats from a changing climate and global pandemics, the idiosyncratic but highly effective scientific knowledge machine must be protected from politicians, commercial interests, and even scientists themselves who seek to open it up, to make it less narrow and more rational—and thus to undermine its devotedly empirical search for truth. Rich with illuminating and often delightfully quirky illustrations, The Knowledge Machine, written in a winningly accessible style that belies the import of its revisionist and groundbreaking concepts, radically reframes much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.
Download or read book Essential Readings in Evolutionary Biology written by Francisco J. Ayala and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2014-03-15 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces scholarly thought from the nineteenth-century birth of evolutionary biology to the mapping of the human genome through forty-eight essays, arranged in chronological order, each preceded by a one-page essay that explains the significance of the chosen work.
Download or read book Evolutionary Community Ecology Volume 58 written by Mark A. McPeek and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Ecological Opportunities, Communities, and Evolution -- 2. The Community of Ecological Opportunities -- 3. Evolving in the Community -- 4. New Species for the Community -- 5. Differentiating in the Community -- 6. Moving among Communities -- 7. Which Ways Forward? -- Literature Cited -- Index
Download or read book Evolution written by Brian Charlesworth and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text is about the central role of evolution in shaping the nature and diversity of the living world. It describes the processes of natural selection, how adaptations arise, and how new species form, as well as summarizing the evidence for evolution
Download or read book Evolution and the Big Questions written by David N. Stamos and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-23 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolution and the Big Questions “David N. Stamos’s Evolution and the Big Questions delivers what its title promises—you get to look at all of the issues, such as race and ethics and religion, that make the study of evolution so interesting, and more than just a science. The book is written in a clear and friendly manner and deserves a very wide readership.” Michael Ruse, Florida State University This provocative text considers whether evolutionary explanations can be used to clarify some of life’s biggest questions. It offers a lively, informative, and timely look at a wide variety of key issues facing all of us today—including questions of race, sex, gender, the nature of language, religion, ethics, knowledge, consciousness, and, ultimately, thc meaning of life. Some of the questions examined are: Did evolution make men and women fundamentally different? Is the concept of race merely a social construction? Is morality, including universal human rights, a mass delusion? Can religion and evolution really be harmonized? Docs evolution render life meaningless? Designed for students and anyone with an interest in the relationship between evolutionary heritage and human nature, the text takes an interdisciplinary approach and offers direction for further reading and research. Each chapter presents a main topic, together with discussion of related ideas and arguments from various perspectives. Along the way, it poses life’s biggest questions, pulling no punches, and presenting a challenge to thinkers on all levels.
Download or read book The Dominant Animal written by Paul R. Ehrlich and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to change the current trajectory toward more climate change, increased famine, and epidemic disease? Renowned Stanford scientists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich believe that intelligently addressing those questions depends on a clear understanding of how we evolved and how and why we’re changing the planet in ways that darken our descendants’ future. The Dominant Animal arms readers with that knowledge, tracing the interplay between environmental change and genetic and cultural evolution since the dawn of humanity. In lucid and engaging prose, they describe how Homo sapiens adapted to their surroundings, eventually developing the vibrant cultures, vast scientific knowledge, and technological wizardry we know today. But the Ehrlichs also explore the flip side of this triumphant story of innovation and conquest. As we clear forests to raise crops and build cities, lace the continents with highways, and create chemicals never before seen in nature, we may be undermining our own supremacy. The threats of environmental damage are clear from the daily headlines, but the outcome is far from destined. Humanity can again adapt—if we learn from our evolutionary past. Those lessons are crystallized in The Dominant Animal. Tackling the fundamental challenge of the human predicament, Paul and Anne Ehrlich offer a vivid and unique exploration of our origins, our evolution, and our future.
Download or read book Ecology a Very Short Introduction written by Jaboury Ghazoul and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding how our living environment works is essentially a study of ecological systems. Ecology is the science of how organisms interact with each other and with their environment, and how such interactions create self-organising communities and ecosystems. This science touches us all. The food we eat, the water we drink, the natural resources we use, our physical and mental health, and much of our cultural heritage are to a large degree products of ecological interactions of organisms and their environment. This Very Short Introduction celebrates the centrality of ecology in our lives. Jaboury Ghazoul explores how ecology has evolved rapidly from natural history to become a predictive science that explains how the natural world works, and which guides environmental policy and management decisions. Drawing on a range of examples, he shows how ecological science can be applied to management and conservation, including the extent to which theory has shaped practice. Ecological science has also shaped social and cultural perspectives on the environment, a process that influences politics of the environment. Ghazoul concludes by considering the future of ecology, particularly in the light of current and future environmental challenges. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
