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 Foundations of Restoration Ecology written by Society for Ecological Restoration International and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2016-11 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Society for Ecological Restoration"--Cover.
Download or read book Stochastic Foundations in Movement Ecology written by Vicenç Méndez and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-09-18 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the fundamental theory for non-standard diffusion problems in movement ecology. Lévy processes and anomalous diffusion have shown to be both powerful and useful tools for qualitatively and quantitatively describing a wide variety of spatial population ecological phenomena and dynamics, such as invasion fronts and search strategies. Adopting a self-contained, textbook-style approach, the authors provide the elements of statistical physics and stochastic processes on which the modeling of movement ecology is based and systematically introduce the physical characterization of ecological processes at the microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic levels. The explicit definition of these levels and their interrelations is particularly suitable to coping with the broad spectrum of space and time scales involved in bio-ecological problems. Including numerous exercises (with solutions), this text is aimed at graduate students and newcomers in this field at the interface of theoretical ecology, mathematical biology and physics.
Download or read book Fundamentals of Ecology written by Eugene Pleasants Odum and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Foundations of Ecological Resilience written by Lance H. Gunderson and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-07-16 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecological resilience provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how complex systems adapt to and recover from localized disturbances like hurricanes, fires, pest outbreaks, and floods, as well as large-scale perturbations such as climate change. Ecologists have developed resilience theory over the past three decades in an effort to explain surprising and nonlinear dynamics of complex adaptive systems. Resilience theory is especially important to environmental scientists for its role in underpinning adaptive management approaches to ecosystem and resource management. Foundations of Ecological Resilience is a collection of the most important articles on the subject of ecological resilience—those writings that have defined and developed basic concepts in the field and help explain its importance and meaning for scientists and researchers. The book’s three sections cover articles that have shaped or defined the concepts and theories of resilience, including key papers that broke new conceptual ground and contributed novel ideas to the field; examples that demonstrate ecological resilience in a range of ecosystems; and articles that present practical methods for understanding and managing nonlinear ecosystem dynamics. Foundations of Ecological Resilience is an important contribution to our collective understanding of resilience and an invaluable resource for students and scholars in ecology, wildlife ecology, conservation biology, sustainability, environmental science, public policy, and related fields.
Download or read book Foundations of the Earth written by H.H. Shugart and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-08 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" God asks Job in the "Whirlwind Speech," but Job cannot reply. This passage—which some environmentalists and religious scholars treat as a "green" creation myth—drives renowned ecologist H. H. Shugart's extraordinary investigation, in which he uses verses from God's speech to Job to explore the planetary system, animal domestication, sea-level rise, evolution, biodiversity, weather phenomena, and climate change. Shugart calls attention to the rich resonance between the Earth's natural history and the workings of religious feeling, the wisdom of biblical scripture, and the arguments of Bible ethicists. The divine questions that frame his study are quintessentially religious, and the global changes humans have wrought on the Earth operate not only in the physical, chemical, and biological spheres but also in the spiritual realm. Shugart offers a universal framework for recognizing and confronting the global challenges humans now face: the relationship between human technology and large-scale environmental degradation, the effect of invasive species on the integrity of ecosystems, the role of humans in generating wide biotic extinctions, and the future of our oceans and tides.
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 Global Public Health written by Franklin White and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-21 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid ongoing shifts in the world economic and political order, the promise for future public health is tenuous. Will today's economic systems sustain tomorrow's health? Will future generations inherit fair access to health and health care? An important hope for the health of future generations is the establishment of a well-grounded, global public health system. Global Public Health: Ecological Foundations addresses both the challenges and cooperative solutions of contemporary public health, within a framework of social justice, environmental sustainability, and global cooperation. With an emphasis on ecological foundations, this book approaches public health principles-history, foundations, topics, and applications-with a community-oriented perspective. By achieving global reach through cooperative, community-based interventions, this text illustrates that the practical application of public health principles can help maintain the health of the world's people. Blending established wisdom with new perspectives, Global Public Health will stimulate better understanding of how the different streams of public health can work more synergistically to promote global health equity. It is a foundation for future public health measures to be built and to succeed.
Download or read book Foundations of Macroecology written by Felisa A. Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-08-22 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Macroecology is an approach to science that emphasizes the description and explanation of patterns and processes at large spatial and temporal scales. Some scientists liken it to seeing the forest through the trees, giving the proverbial phrase an ecological twist. The term itself was first introduced to the modern literature by James H. Brown and Brian A. Maurer in a 1989 paper, and it is Brown’s classic 1995 study, Macroecology, that is credited with inspiring the broad-scale subfield of ecology. But as with all subfields, many modern-day elements of macroecology are implicit in earlier works dating back decades, even centuries. Foundations of Macroecology charts the evolutionary trajectory of these concepts—from the species-area relationship and the latitudinal gradient of species richness to the relationship between body size and metabolic rate—through forty-six landmark papers originally published between 1920 and 1998. Divided into two parts—“Macroecology before Macroecology” and “Dimensions of Macroecology”—the collection also takes the long view, with each paper accompanied by an original commentary from a contemporary expert in the field that places it in a broader context and explains its foundational role. Providing a solid, coherent assessment of the history, current state, and potential future of the field, Foundations of Macroecology will be an essential text for students and teachers of ecology alike.
Download or read book Toward a Transpersonal Ecology written by Warwick Fox and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book I advance an argument concerning the nature of the deep ecology approach to ecophilosophy. In order to advance this argument in as thorough a manner as possible, I present it within the context of a comprehensive overview of the writings on deep ecology.
Download or read book Foundation Papers in Landscape Ecology written by John A. Wiens and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The editors begin with articles that illuminate the discipline's diverse scientific foundations, such as L.
Download or read book Foundations of Tropical Forest Biology written by Robin L. Chazdon and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 880 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a timely collection of pioneering work in the study of these diverse and fascinating ecosystems. It consists of facsimiles of papers chosen by world experts in tropical biology as the 'classics' in the field.
Download or read book From Populations to Ecosystems written by Michel Loreau and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The major subdisciplines of ecology--population ecology, community ecology, ecosystem ecology, and evolutionary ecology--have diverged increasingly in recent decades. What is critically needed today is an integrated, real-world approach to ecology that reflects the interdependency of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. From Populations to Ecosystems proposes an innovative theoretical synthesis that will enable us to advance our fundamental understanding of ecological systems and help us to respond to today's emerging global ecological crisis. Michel Loreau begins by explaining how the principles of population dynamics and ecosystem functioning can be merged. He then addresses key issues in the study of biodiversity and ecosystems, such as functional complementarity, food webs, stability and complexity, material cycling, and metacommunities. Loreau describes the most recent theoretical advances that link the properties of individual populations to the aggregate properties of communities, and the properties of functional groups or trophic levels to the functioning of whole ecosystems, placing special emphasis on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Finally, he turns his attention to the controversial issue of the evolution of entire ecosystems and their properties, laying the theoretical foundations for a genuine evolutionary ecosystem ecology. From Populations to Ecosystems points the way to a much-needed synthesis in ecology, one that offers a fuller understanding of ecosystem processes in the natural world.
Download or read book The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization written by Arran Gare and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-05 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization.
Download or read book Foundations of Biogeography written by Mark V. Lomolino and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2004-07 with total page 1284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foundations of Biogeography provides facsimile reprints of seventy-two works that have proven fundamental to the development of the field. From classics by Georges-Louis LeClerc Compte de Buffon, Alexander von Humboldt, and Charles Darwin to equally seminal contributions by Ernst Mayr, Robert MacArthur, and E. O. Wilson, these papers and book excerpts not only reveal biogeography's historical roots but also trace its theoretical and empirical development. Selected and introduced by leading biogeographers, the articles cover a wide variety of taxonomic groups, habitat types, and geographic regions. Foundations of Biogeography will be an ideal introduction to the field for beginning students and an essential reference for established scholars of biogeography, ecology, and evolution. List of Contributors John C. Briggs, James H. Brown, Vicki A. Funk, Paul S. Giller, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Lawrence R. Heaney, Robert Hengeveld, Christopher J. Humphries, Mark V. Lomolino, Alan A. Myers, Brett R. Riddle, Dov F. Sax, Geerat J. Vermeij, Robert J. Whittaker
Download or read book Evolutionary Ecology and Human Behavior written by Eric Alden Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""à required reading for anyone interested in the economy, ecology, and demography of human societies."" --American Journal of Human Biology ""This excellent book can serve both as a text¼book and as a scholarly reference."" --American Scientist
Download or read book The Foundations of Nature written by Michael Dominic Taylor and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-12-24 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will the ecological crises of our time be resolved using the same form of thought that has brought them about? Are technological prowess and political power the proper tools to address them? Is there not a deeper connection between our ecological crises and our human, social, political, economic, and ethical crises? This book argues that the popular approaches to ecological, bioethical, and other human crises are not working because they fail to examine the problem in its full depth. This depth escapes us because we have abandoned true metaphysical reflection on the whole and substituted it unknowingly for a series of inadequate alternatives. Both the technocratic paradigm that views all of nature mechanistically and its antagonists—the eco-philosophies that argue for the realities of intrinsic value, relationality, and beauty—carry partial truths but are insufficient. This book presents a more radical alternative, rooted in the classical tradition yet fresh and vibrant. The metaphysics of gift, based in the giftedness of existence shared by all, offers a deeper and more satisfying vision of all things that can transform our relationship with nature and touches every aspect of human life: social, political, economic, technical, and ethical.
