Download or read book Ecological Niches written by Jonathan M. Chase and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-07 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do species live where they live? What determines the abundance and diversity of species in a given area? What role do species play in the functioning of entire ecosystems? All of these questions share a single core concept—the ecological niche. Although the niche concept has fallen into disfavor among ecologists in recent years, Jonathan M. Chase and Mathew A. Leibold argue that the niche is an ideal tool with which to unify disparate research and theoretical approaches in contemporary ecology. Chase and Leibold define the niche as including both what an organism needs from its environment and how that organism's activities shape its environment. Drawing on the theory of consumer-resource interactions, as well as its graphical analysis, they develop a framework for understanding niches that is flexible enough to include a variety of small- and large-scale processes, from resource competition, predation, and stress to community structure, biodiversity, and ecosystem function. Chase and Leibold's synthetic approach will interest ecologists from a wide range of subdisciplines.
Download or read book Ecological Niches written by Jonathan M. Chase and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2003-07 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do species live where they live? What determines the abundance and diversity of species in a given area? What role do species play in the functioning of entire ecosystems? All of these questions share a single core concept—the ecological niche. Although the niche concept has fallen into disfavor among ecologists in recent years, Jonathan M. Chase and Mathew A. Leibold argue that the niche is an ideal tool with which to unify disparate research and theoretical approaches in contemporary ecology. Chase and Leibold define the niche as including both what an organism needs from its environment and how that organism's activities shape its environment. Drawing on the theory of consumer-resource interactions, as well as its graphical analysis, they develop a framework for understanding niches that is flexible enough to include a variety of small- and large-scale processes, from resource competition, predation, and stress to community structure, biodiversity, and ecosystem function. Chase and Leibold's synthetic approach will interest ecologists from a wide range of subdisciplines.
Download or read book Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions MPB 49 written by A. Townsend Peterson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-20 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terminology, conceptual overview, biogeography, modeling.
Download or read book Finding Our Niche written by Philip A. Loring and published by Fernwood Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-11T00:00:00Z with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine a world where humanity was not destined to cause harm to the natural world, where win-win scenarios—people and nature thriving together—are possible. No doubt contemporary western society is steeped in the legacy of white supremacy and colonialism, and as a result, many people have come to believe that humanity is fundamentally flawed, that the story of our species is destined to be nasty, brutish, and short. But what if this narrative could be dismantled? In Finding Our Niche, Philip A. Loring does just that. He explores the tragedies of Western society and offers examples and analyses that can guide us in reconciling our damaging settler-colonial histories and tremendous environmental missteps in favor of a more sustainable and just vision for the future. Drawing from numerous cases around the world, from cattle ranchers on the Burren in Ireland, to clam gardeners in British Columbia and protectors of an accidental wetland in northwest Mexico, Loring brings the reader through a difficult journey of reconciliation, a journey that leads to a more optimistic understanding of human nature and the prospects for our future, where people and nature thrive together. Interwoven are Loring’s personal struggles to reconcile his identity as a white settler living and working on stolen Indigenous lands. In a moment when our world is hanging in the balance, Finding Our Niche is a hopeful exploration of humanity’s place in the natural world, one that focuses on how we can heal and reconcile our unique human ecologies to achieve more sustainable and just societies.
Download or read book The Princeton Guide to Ecology written by Simon A. Levin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-27 with total page 843 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Princeton Guide to Ecology is a concise, authoritative one-volume reference to the field's major subjects and key concepts. Edited by eminent ecologist Simon Levin, with contributions from an international team of leading ecologists, the book contains more than ninety clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics within seven major areas: autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecosystem services, and biosphere management. Complete with more than 200 illustrations (including sixteen pages in color), a glossary of key terms, a chronology of milestones in the field, suggestions for further reading on each topic, and an index, this is an essential volume for undergraduate and graduate students, research ecologists, scientists in related fields, policymakers, and anyone else with a serious interest in ecology. Explains key topics in one concise and authoritative volume Features more than ninety articles written by an international team of leading ecologists Contains more than 200 illustrations, including sixteen pages in color Includes glossary, chronology, suggestions for further reading, and index Covers autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecosystem services, and biosphere management
Download or read book Niche Construction written by F. John Odling-Smee and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seemingly innocent observation that the activities of organisms bring about changes in environments is so obvious that it seems an unlikely focus for a new line of thinking about evolution. Yet niche construction--as this process of organism-driven environmental modification is known--has hidden complexities. By transforming biotic and abiotic sources of natural selection in external environments, niche construction generates feedback in evolution on a scale hitherto underestimated--and in a manner that transforms the evolutionary dynamic. It also plays a critical role in ecology, supporting ecosystem engineering and influencing the flow of energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Despite this, niche construction has been given short shrift in theoretical biology, in part because it cannot be fully understood within the framework of standard evolutionary theory. Wedding evolution and ecology, this book extends evolutionary theory by formally including niche construction and ecological inheritance as additional evolutionary processes. The authors support their historic move with empirical data, theoretical population genetics, and conceptual models. They also describe new research methods capable of testing the theory. They demonstrate how their theory can resolve long-standing problems in ecology, particularly by advancing the sorely needed synthesis of ecology and evolution, and how it offers an evolutionary basis for the human sciences. Already hailed as a pioneering work by some of the world's most influential biologists, this is a rare, potentially field-changing contribution to the biological sciences.
Download or read book Organism and Environment written by Sonia E. Sultan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, advances in both molecular developmental biology and evolutionary ecology have made possible a new understanding of organisms as dynamic systems interacting with their environments. This innovative book synthesizes a wealth of recent research findings to examine how environments influence phenotypic expression in individual organisms (ecological development or 'eco-devo'), and how organisms in turn alter their environments (niche construction). A key argument explored throughout the book is that ecological interactions as well as natural selection are shaped by these dual organism-environment effects. This synthesis is particularly timely as biologists seek a unified contemporary framework in which to investigate the developmental outcomes, ecological success, and evolutionary prospects of organisms in rapidly changing environments. Organism and Environment is an advanced text suitable for graduate level students taking seminar courses in ecology, evolution, and developmental biology, as well as academics and researchers in these fields.
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 The Princeton Guide to Ecology written by Simon A. Levin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-30 with total page 826 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Princeton Guide to Ecology is a concise, authoritative one-volume reference to the field's major subjects and key concepts. Edited by eminent ecologist Simon Levin, with contributions from an international team of leading ecologists, the book contains more than ninety clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics within seven major areas: autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecosystem services, and biosphere management. Complete with more than 200 illustrations (including sixteen pages in color), a glossary of key terms, a chronology of milestones in the field, suggestions for further reading on each topic, and an index, this is an essential volume for undergraduate and graduate students, research ecologists, scientists in related fields, policymakers, and anyone else with a serious interest in ecology. Explains key topics in one concise and authoritative volume Features more than ninety articles written by an international team of leading ecologists Contains more than 200 illustrations, including sixteen pages in color Includes glossary, chronology, suggestions for further reading, and index Covers autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecosystem services, and biosphere management
Download or read book Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences written by Thomas Heams and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-23 with total page 898 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Darwinian theory of evolution is itself evolving and this book presents the details of the core of modern Darwinism and its latest developmental directions. The authors present current scientific work addressing theoretical problems and challenges in four sections, beginning with the concepts of evolution theory, its processes of variation, heredity, selection, adaptation and function, and its patterns of character, species, descent and life. The second part of this book scrutinizes Darwinism in the philosophy of science and its usefulness in understanding ecosystems, whilst the third section deals with its application in disciplines beyond the biological sciences, including evolutionary psychology and evolutionary economics, Darwinian morality and phylolinguistics. The final section addresses anti-Darwinism, the creationist view and issues around teaching evolution in secondary schools. The reader learns how current experimental biology is opening important perspectives on the sources of variation, and thus of the very power of natural selection. This work examines numerous examples of the extension of the principle of natural selection and provides the opportunity to critically reflect on a rich theory, on the methodological rigour that presides in its extensions and exportations, and on the necessity to measure its advantages and also its limits. Scholars interested in modern Darwinism and scientific research, its concepts, research programs and controversies will find this book an excellent read, and those considering how Darwinism might evolve, how it can apply to the human sciences and other disciplines beyond its origins will find it particularly valuable. Originally produced in French (Les Mondes Darwiniens), the scope and usefulness of the book have led to the production of this English text, to reach a wider audience. This book is a milestone in the impressive penetration by Francophone scholars into the world of Darwinian science, its historiography and philosophy over the last two decades. Alex Rosenberg, R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University Until now this useful and comprehensive handbook has only been available to francophones. Thanks to this invaluable new translation, this collection of insightful and original essays can reach the global audience it deserves. Tim Lewens, University of Cambridge
Download or read book Niche Evolution and Phylogenetic Community Paleoecology of Late Ordovician Crinoids written by Selina R. Cole and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fossil crinoids are exceptionally suited to deep-time studies of community paleoecology and niche partitioning. By merging ecomorphological trait and phylogenetic data, this Element summarizes niche occupation and community paleoecology of crinoids from the Bromide fauna of Oklahoma (Sandbian, Upper Ordovician). Patterns of community structure and niche evolution are evaluated over a ~5 million-year period through comparison with the Brechin Lagerstätte (Katian, Upper Ordovician). The authors establish filtration fan density, food size selectivity, and body size as major axes defining niche differentiation, and niche occupation is strongly controlled by phylogeny. Ecological strategies were relatively static over the study interval at high taxonomic scales, but niche differentiation and specialization increased in most subclades. Changes in disparity and species richness indicate the transition between the early-middle Paleozoic Crinoid Evolutionary Faunas was already underway by the Katian due to ecological drivers and was not triggered by the Late Ordovician mass extinction.
Download or read book Ecology of Humic Substances in Freshwaters written by Christian Steinberg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2003-04-16 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humic Substances color all waters more or less brown. Their concentrations exceed all carbon of living organisms by at least one order of magnitude. Opposite to former paradigms, they participate in almost any metabolic pathway. They protect against UV-irradation, enable indirect photolysis and, thus, purify hazardous chemicals, they provide inorganic and organic nutrients, may form cryptic genes with DNA and dampen metabolic fluctuations. More recently they can increase adverse effects of hazardous chemicals and they can directly interfere with organisms. The book tries to relate effects to structural features.
Download or read book The Theory of Ecology written by Samuel M. Scheiner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-07-15 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite claims to the contrary, the science of ecology has a long history of building theories. Many ecological theories are mathematical, computational, or statistical, though, and rarely have attempts been made to organize or extrapolate these models into broader theories. The Theory of Ecology brings together some of the most respected and creative theoretical ecologists of this era to advance a comprehensive, conceptual articulation of ecological theories. The contributors cover a wide range of topics, from ecological niche theory to population dynamic theory to island biogeography theory. Collectively, the chapters ably demonstrate how theory in ecology accounts for observations about the natural world and how models provide predictive understandings. It organizes these models into constitutive domains that highlight the strengths and weaknesses of ecological understanding. This book is a milestone in ecological theory and is certain to motivate future empirical and theoretical work in one of the most exciting and active domains of the life sciences.
Download or read book Primate Ecology and Conservation written by Eleanor Sterling and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This practical volume brings together a group of distinguished primate researchers to synthesise field, laboratory, and conservation management techniques for primate ecology and conservation.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Ecology written by Brian D. Fath and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2014-11-03 with total page 4292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The groundbreaking Encyclopedia of Ecology provides an authoritative and comprehensive coverage of the complete field of ecology, from general to applied. It includes over 500 detailed entries, structured to provide the user with complete coverage of the core knowledge, accessed as intuitively as possible, and heavily cross-referenced. Written by an international team of leading experts, this revolutionary encyclopedia will serve as a one-stop-shop to concise, stand-alone articles to be used as a point of entry for undergraduate students, or as a tool for active researchers looking for the latest information in the field. Entries cover a range of topics, including: Behavioral Ecology Ecological Processes Ecological Modeling Ecological Engineering Ecological Indicators Ecological Informatics Ecosystems Ecotoxicology Evolutionary Ecology General Ecology Global Ecology Human Ecology System Ecology The first reference work to cover all aspects of ecology, from basic to applied Over 500 concise, stand-alone articles are written by prominent leaders in the field Article text is supported by full-color photos, drawings, tables, and other visual material Fully indexed and cross referenced with detailed references for further study Writing level is suited to both the expert and non-expert Available electronically on ScienceDirect shortly upon publication
Download or read book Introduction to Cultural Ecology written by Mark Q. Sutton and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2004 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is geared toward students and instructors involved in cultural ecology, ecological anthropology, and/or human ecology. While covering basic concepts for beginners, this book also provides a thorough and sophisticated discussion of cultural ecology's history and theory using examples from throughout the world, both historical and contemporary.
Download or read book Niche written by Robert Harding Whittaker and published by Dowden Hutchinson and Ross. This book was released on 1975 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Origin of the niche concept; The competitive exclusion principle; Editor's comments on papers 9 through 18; Niche and habitat dimensions; Variation in space and time; Case histories; Conclusion.
