Download or read book Trophic Cascades written by John Terborgh and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trophic cascades—the top-down regulation of ecosystems by predators—are an essential aspect of ecosystem function and well-being. Trophic cascades are often drastically disrupted by human interventions—for example, when wolves and cougars are removed, allowing deer and beaver to become destructive—yet have only recently begun to be considered in the development of conservation and management strategies. Trophic Cascades is the first comprehensive presentation of the science on this subject. It brings together some of the world’s leading scientists and researchers to explain the importance of large animals in regulating ecosystems, and to relate that scientific knowledge to practical conservation. Chapters examine trophic cascades across the world’s major biomes, including intertidal habitats, coastal oceans, lakes, nearshore ecosystems, open oceans, tropical forests, boreal and temperate ecosystems, low arctic scrubland, savannas, and islands. Additional chapters consider aboveground/belowground linkages, predation and ecosystem processes, consumer control by megafauna and fire, and alternative states in ecosystems. An introductory chapter offers a concise overview of trophic cascades, while concluding chapters consider theoretical perspectives and comparative issues. Trophic Cascades provides a scientific basis and justification for the idea that large predators and top-down forcing must be considered in conservation strategies, alongside factors such as habitat preservation and invasive species. It is a groundbreaking work for scientists and managers involved with biodiversity conservation and protection.
Download or read book Trophic Cascade written by Camille T. Dungy and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A soulful reckoning for our twenty-first century, held in focus through echoes of the past and future, but always firmly rooted in now.” —Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Winner of the Colorado Book Award in Poetry (2018) In this fourth book in a series of award-winning survival narratives, Dungy writes positioned at a fulcrum, bringing a new life into the world even as her elders are passing on. In a time of massive environmental degradation, violence and abuse of power, a world in which we all must survive, these poems resonate within and beyond the scope of the human realms, delicately balancing between conflicting loci of attention. Dwelling between vibrancy and its opposite, Dungy writes in a single poem about a mother, a daughter, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, brittle stars, giant boulders, and a dead blue whale. These poems are written in the face of despair to hold an impossible love and a commitment to hope. A readers companion will be available at wesleyan.edu/wespress/readerscompanions. “Dungy asks how we can survive despair and finds her answers close to the earth.” —Diana Whitney, The Kenyon Review “Trophic Cascade frequently bears witness—to violence, to loss, to environmental degradation—but for Dungy, witnessing entails hope.” —Julie Swarstad Johnson, Harvard Review Online “Tension. Simmering. Beneath her matter-of-fact, easy-going, sit-yourself-down, let-me-tell-it-like-it-is clarifying. And her power we take deadly seriously.” —Matt Sutherland, Foreword Reviews “[Trophic Cascade] asks us, in spite of the pain or difficulty of being human today, to find joy and vibrancy in our experiences.” —Elizabeth Flock, PBS Newshour
Download or read book The Trophic Cascade in Lakes written by Stephen R. Carpenter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-07-13 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1993 book documents the importance of trophic cascades in aquatic ecology.
Download or read book Applying Graph Theory in Ecological Research written by Mark R.T. Dale and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-09 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book clearly describes the many applications of graph theory to ecological questions, providing instruction and encouragement to researchers.
Download or read book Asked What Has Changed written by Ed Roberson and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Black ecopoet observes the changing world from a high-rise window, “ever alert to affinities between the small and the vast, the fleeting and the cosmic” (James Gibbons, Hyperallergic). Award-winning poet Ed Roberson confronts the realities of an era in which the fate of humanity and the very survival of our planet are uncertain. Departing from the traditional nature poem, Roberson's work reclaims a much older tradition, drawing into poetry’s orbit what the physical and human sciences reveal about the state of a changing world. These poems test how far the lyric can go as an answer to our crisis, even calling into question poetic form itself. Reflections on the natural world and moments of personal interiority are interwoven with images of urbanscapes, environmental crises, and political instabilities. These poems speak life and truth to modernity in all its complexity. Throughout, Roberson takes up the ancient spiritual concern—the ephemerality of life—and gives us a new language to process the feeling of living in a century on the brink.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Rewilding written by Sally Hawkins and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory, and current practices of rewilding. Rewilding offers a transformational paradigm shift in conservation thinking, and as such is increasingly of interest to academics, policymakers, and practitioners. However, as a rapidly emerging area of conservation, the term has often been defined and used in a variety of different ways (both temporally and spatially). There is, therefore, the need for a comprehensive assessment of this field, and the Routledge Handbook of Rewilding fills this lacuna. The handbook is organised into four sections to reflect key areas of rewilding theory, practice, and debate: the evolution of rewilding, theoretical and practical underpinnings, applications and impacts, and the ethics and philosophy of rewilding. Drawing on a range of international case studies the handbook addresses many of the key issues, including land acquisition and longer-term planning, transitioning from restoration (human-led, nature enabled) to rewilding (nature-led, human enabled), and the role of political and social transformational change. Led by an editorial team who have extensive experience researching and practising rewilding, this handbook is essential reading for students, academics and practitioners interested in rewilding, ecological restoration, natural resource management and conservation.
Download or read book Trophic Ecology written by James E. Garvey and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-09-19 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a bridge between ecological paradigms – organismal/community approaches to food web dynamics and ecosystem-level approaches to production. The unification of organismal, community, and ecosystem approaches in ecology is emerging due to the growing availability of new techniques for assessing trophic interactions and their implications for ecosystems. Trophic Ecology is a formal text for both newcomers to the discipline as well as seasoned professionals looking for new ideas and refreshers on old topics. A wide range of topics are explained including autotrophy, heterotrophy, omnivory, decomposition, foraging behavior and theory, trophic cascades, bioenergetics, and production. The audience is upper-level undergraduate students and entry-level graduate students interested in autecological, organismal approaches to ecology, community and ecosystem ecology. It is also a reference text for instructors teaching upper-division courses, providing examples from the literature, quantitative approaches to teach, and new hypotheses yet to be fully tested by ecologists.
Download or read book A Sand County Almanac written by Aldo Leopold and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-05 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as "full of beauty and vigor and bite," A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with a call for changing our understanding of land management.
Download or read book Eutrophication Causes Consequences and Control written by Abid A. Ansari and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eutrophication continues to be a major global challenge and the problem of eutrophication and availability of freshwater for human consumption is an essential ecological issue. The global demand for water resources due to increasing population, economic developments, and emerging energy development schemes has created new environmental challenges for global sustainability. Accordingly, the area of research on eutrophication has expanded considerably in recent years. Eutrophication, acidification and contamination by toxic substances are likely to pose increasing threats to freshwater resources and ecosystems. The consequences of anthropogenic-induced eutrophication of freshwaters are severe deterioration of surface waters and growing public concern, as well as new interest among the scientific community. “Eutrophication: causes, consequences & control” provides the latest information on many important aspects of the processes of natural and accelerated eutrophication in major aquatic ecosystems around the world. This book offers a cutting-edge resource for researchers and students alike who are studying eutrophication in various ecosystems. It presents the latest trends and developments in the field, including: global scenarios and local threats to the dynamics of aquatic ecosystems, economics of eutrophication, eutrophication in the great lakes of the Chinese pacific drainage basin, photoautotrophic productivity in eutrophic ecosystems, eutrophication’s impacts on natural metal remediation in salt marshes, phytoplankton assemblages as an indicator of water quality in seven temperate estuarine lakes in southeast Australia, biogeochemical indicators of nutrient enrichments in wetlands – the microbial response as a sensitive indicator of wetland eutrophication, and ultraviolet radiation and bromide as limiting factors in eutrophication processes in semi-arid climate zones. Written by respected experts and featuring helpful illustrations and photographs, “Eutrophication: causes, consequences & control” provides a concise and practical update on the latest developments in eutrophication.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Environmental Change written by John A Matthews and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2013-12-13 with total page 3227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accessibly written by a team of international authors, the Encyclopedia of Environmental Change provides a gateway to the complex facts, concepts, techniques, methodology and philosophy of environmental change. This three-volume set illustrates and examines topics within this dynamic and rapidly changing interdisciplinary field. The encyclopedia includes all of the following aspects of environmental change: Diverse evidence of environmental change, including climate change and changes on land and in the oceans Underlying natural and anthropogenic causes and mechanisms Wide-ranging local, regional and global impacts from the polar regions to the tropics Responses of geo-ecosystems and human-environmental systems in the face of past, present and future environmental change Approaches, methodologies and techniques used for reconstructing, dating, monitoring, modelling, projecting and predicting change Social, economic and political dimensions of environmental issues, environmental conservation and management and environmental policy Over 4,000 entries explore the following key themes and more: Conservation Demographic change Environmental management Environmental policy Environmental security Food security Glaciation Green Revolution Human impact on environment Industrialization Landuse change Military impacts on environment Mining and mining impacts Nuclear energy Pollution Renewable resources Solar energy Sustainability Tourism Trade Water resources Water security Wildlife conservation The comprehensive coverage of terminology includes layers of entries ranging from one-line definitions to short essays, making this an invaluable companion for any student of physical geography, environmental geography or environmental sciences.
Download or read book Ecology in Action written by Fred D. Singer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 721 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking a fresh approach to integrating key concepts and research processes, this undergraduate textbook encourages students to develop an understanding of how ecologists raise and answer real-world questions. Four unique chapters describe the development and evolution of different research programs in each of ecology's core areas, showing students that research is undertaken by real people who are profoundly influenced by their social and political environments. Beginning with a case study to capture student interest, each chapter emphasizes the linkage between observations, ideas, questions, hypotheses, predictions, results, and conclusions. Discussion questions, integrated within the text, encourage active participation, and a range of end-of-chapter questions reinforce knowledge and encourage application of analytical and critical thinking skills to real ecological questions. Students are asked to analyze and interpret real data, with support from online tutorials demonstrating the R programming language for statistical analysis.
Download or read book Serendipity written by James A. Estes and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Many of the findings in the book . . . are classics of ecology. . . . A rare and delightful insight into timely science."—Jane Lubchenco, Nature "Estes's refreshing narrative deftly weaves rigorous science with personal reflection to create an absorbing and introspective read that is equal parts memoir, ecological textbook, and motivational guidebook for young ecologists."—Science To newly minted biologist James Estes, the sea otters he was studying in the leafy kelp forests off the coast of Alaska appeared to have an unbalanced relationship with their greater environment. Gorging themselves on the sea urchins that grazed among the kelp, these small charismatic mammals seemed to give little back in return. But as Estes dug deeper, he unearthed a far more complex relationship between the otter and its underwater environment, discovering that otters play a critical role in driving positive ecosystem dynamics. While teasing out the connective threads, he began to question our assumptions about ecological relationships. These questions would ultimately inspire a lifelong quest to better understand the surprising complexity of our natural world and the unexpected ways we discover it. Serendipity tells the story of James Estes’s life as a naturalist and the concepts that have driven his interest in researching the ecological role of top-level predators. Using the relationships between sea otters, kelp, and sea urchins as a touchstone, Estes retraces his investigations of numerous other species, ecosystems, and ecological processes in an attempt to discover why ecologists can learn so many details about the systems in which they work and yet understand so little about the broader processes that influence these systems. Part memoir, part natural history, and deeply inquisitive, Serendipity will entertain and inform readers as it raises thoughtful questions about our relationship with the natural world.
Download or read book Freshwater Ecology written by Walter Dodds and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2010-11-03 with total page 829 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freshwater Ecology, Second Edition, is a broad, up-to-date treatment of everything from the basic chemical and physical properties of water to advanced unifying concepts of the community ecology and ecosystem relationships as found in continental waters. With 40% new and expanded coverage, this text covers applied and basic aspects of limnology, now with more emphasis on wetlands and reservoirs than in the previous edition. It features 80 new and updated figures, including a section of color plates, and 500 new and updated references. The authors take a synthetic approach to ecological problems, teaching students how to handle the challenges faced by contemporary aquatic scientists. This text is designed for undergraduate students taking courses in Freshwater Ecology and Limnology; and introductory graduate students taking courses in Freshwater Ecology and Limnology. Expanded revision of Dodds' successful text. New boxed sections provide more advanced material within the introductory, modular format of the first edition. Basic scientific concepts and environmental applications featured throughout. Added coverage of climate change, ecosystem function, hypertrophic habitats and secondary production. Expanded coverage of physical limnology, groundwater and wetland habitats. Expanded coverage of the toxic effects of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupters as freshwater pollutants More on aquatic invertebrates, with more images and pictures of a broader range of organisms Expanded coverage of the functional roles of filterer feeding, scraping, and shredding organisms, and a new section on omnivores. Expanded appendix on standard statistical techniques. Supporting website with figures and tables - http://www.elsevierdirect.com/companion.jsp?ISBN=9780123747242
Download or read book Guidebook to Relative Strangers Journeys into Race Motherhood and History written by Camille T. Dungy and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A 2018 Colorado Book Award Finalist As a working mother and poet-lecturer, Camille Dungy’s livelihood depended on travel. She crisscrossed America and beyond with her daughter in tow, history shadowing their steps, always intensely aware of how they were perceived, not just as mother and child but as black women. From the San Francisco of settlers’ dreams to the slave-trading ports of Ghana, from snow-white Maine to a festive yet threatening bonfire in the Virginia pinewoods, Dungy finds fear and trauma but also mercy, kindness, and community. Penetrating and generous, this is an essential guide for a troubled land.
Download or read book Carnivoran Ecology written by Steven W. Buskirk and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-02 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These charismatic mammals, which include dogs, cats, hyenas, weasels, mongooses, seals, sea lions and bears, have always held special importance to humans throughout history and continue to do so today. In recent decades, the emergence of new technologies has completely transformed our knowledge of how carnivorans interact with their environments and consequently reshaped our view of carnivoran ecology. This unique synthesis uses examples from a diverse and expanding carnivoran literature, drawing from all carnivoran families and spanning the world's oceans and continents, to produce a clearly written and richly illustrated book that reviews our current state of knowledge of carnivoran ecology. It addresses all levels of biological organization and function, from genes to enzymes, organisms, populations, and ecosystems. Special attention is given to how carnivoran species interact with their prey, each other, and humans. There is an emphasis on community interactions and their importance in carnivoran evolution, showing how evolutionary constraints (morphological, physiological, and behavioral) structure communities today. The book's approach is strongly comparative, contrasting herbivores with carnivores, predators with scavengers, and cats with dogs. Carnivorans play important roles in many high-profile conservation cases, either as species of concern or agents of endangerment, and their importance is demonstrated in both contexts. Carnivoran Ecology is an accessible advanced textbook aimed principally at senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in carnivore ecology, as well as a broad audience of professional academics (especially carnivore and mammalian biologists), researchers, and practitioners working in both governmental and non-governmental organizations. A significant secondary market will exist amongst the large amateur naturalist community including those wishing to explore the ecological and evolutionary links between domestic carnivorans (dogs, cats, ferrets etc.) and their wild counterparts.
Download or read book Ecology of Predator Prey Interactions written by Pedro Barbosa and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-08-11 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the fundamental issues of predator-prey interactions, with an emphasis on predation among arthropods, which have been better studied, and for which the database is more extensive than for the large and rare vertebrate predators. The book should appeal to ecologists interested in the broad issue of predation effects on communities.
Download or read book Ecology of Shallow Lakes written by Marten Scheffer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecology of Shallow Lakes brings together current understanding of the mechanisms that drive the diametrically opposite states of water clarity, shown by the cover paintings, found in many shallow lakes and ponds. It gives an outline of the knowledge gained from field observations, experimental work, and restoration studies, linked by a solid theoretical framework. The book focuses on shallow lakes, but the lucid treatment of plankton dynamics, resuspension, light climate and the role of vegetation is relevant to a much wider range of aquatic systems. The models that are used remain simple and most analyses are graphical rather than algebraic. The text will therefore appeal to students, scientists and policy makers in the field of ecology, fisheries, pollution studies and water management, and also to theoreticans who will benefit from the many real-world examples of topics such as predation and competition theory, bifurcation analysis and catastrophe theory. Perhaps most importantly, the book is a remarkable example of how large field experiments and simple models can catalyze our insight into complex ecosystems. Marten Scheffer wrote this book while at the Institute of Inland Water Management and Waste Treatment, RIZA, Lelystad, The Netherlands. He is currently at the Department of Water Quality Management and Aquatic Ecology of the Wageningen Agricultural University. Reviews `Much rarer are textbooks that so succinctly sum up the state-of-the-art knowledge about a subject that they become instant `bibles'. This book is one of these. It is probably one of the best biological textbooks I have read. Scheffer masterfully pulls all this information together under one cover and presents a coherent account, which will serve as a benchmark for the subject. The reader will not gain any great insight into the breeding biology of pike from this book, nor learn much about dragonflies or newts. They will, however, come to understand the essential nature of shallow lakes or, as the author puts it, `how shallow lakes work'. Overall, this book will be of great interest to practical and theoretical ecologists, students and managers in all fields of biology. All freshwater ecologists should certainly read it.' Simon Harrison in Journal of Ecology, 86 `The book by Scheffer can be seen as a milestone in the recognition of shallow lakes as a research topic in its own right. Scheffer uses three approaches concurrently to unravel the functioning of shallow lakes: 1) statistical analysis of large datasets from a variety of lakes; 2) simple abstract models made up of a few non-linear ordinary differential equations, which he calls `mini-models'; and 3) logical reasoning based on a mixture of results from fieldwork, experiments and models. What is new is that Scheffer links mathematics very nicely with what one feels is a correct description of the functioning of a shallow lake. Employing logical reasoning, Scheffer combines all these sources of knowledge into a general, coherent picture of the functioning of a shallow lake.' Wolf Mooij in Aquatic Ecology, 32
