| Description |
xii, 440 pages, 25 unnumbered pages : colour illustrations, maps ; 28 cm |
| Contents |
Contents note continued: 14.4.Synthetic fertilizer and the intensification of agriculture -- 14.5.Monocultures, pests, and pesticides in agriculture -- Chemical approaches to pest control -- Biological control -- 14.6.Global land use and other constraints on continued intensification of agriculture -- 14.7.Food from fisheries and aquaculture -- Summary -- Review questions |
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Contents note continued: 2.3.The ecology of speciation -- What do we mean by a ̀species'? -- Allopatric speciation -- Sympatric speciation? -- 2.4.The effects of climatic change on the evolution and distribution of species -- 2.5.Continental drift, parallel and convergent evolution -- 2.6.Conclusion -- Summary -- Review Questions -- pt. 2 Conditions and Resources -- ch. 3 Physical conditions and the availability of resources -- 3.1.Environmental conditions -- What do we mean by ̀harsh,' ̀benign,' and ̀extreme'? -- Effects of conditions -- Conditions as stimuli -- The effects of conditions on interactions between organisms -- Responses by sedentary organisms -- Animal responses to environmental temperature -- Microorganisms in extreme environments -- 3.2.Resources for photosynthetic organisms -- Solar radiation -- Water -- Nutrients -- Carbon dioxide -- 3.3.Heterotrophs and their resources -- Nutritional needs and provisions -- Defense -- |
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Contents note continued: Genetic problems in small populations -- Habitat reduction -- 13.3.Threats to biodiversity -- Overexploitation -- Habitat disruption -- Global environmental change -- Introduced and invasive species -- Infectious disease -- Combinations of risks and extinction vortices -- Chains of extinctions? -- 13.4.Conservation in practice -- Population viability analysis -- Protected areas -- Selecting conservation areas -- Collections of areas -- 13.5.Ecosystem services -- Summary -- Review questions -- ch. 14 The ecology of human population growth, disease, and food supply -- 14.1.Human use of ecological resources -- 14.2.The human population problem -- Population growth up to the present -- Predicting the future -- Two future inevitabilities -- A global carrying capacity? -- 14.3.Ecology and human health -- Loss of the ozone layer -- Extreme events -- Changing global patterns of infection -- Emerging infectious diseases -- |
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Contents note continued: Interactions with other factors -- Compensation and defense by individual prey -- From individual prey to prey populations -- 7.4.Predator behavior: foraging and transmission -- Foraging behavior -- 7.5.Population dynamics of predation -- Underlying dynamics of predator-prey interactions: a tendency to cycle -- Predator-prey cycles in practice -- Disease dynamics and cycles -- Crowding -- Predators and prey in patches -- 7.6.Predation and community structure -- Summary -- Review questions -- ch. 8 Molecular and evolutionary ecology -- 8.1.Molecular ecology: differentiation within and between species -- Differentiation within species: albatrosses -- Differentiation between species: the red wolf---species or hybrid? -- 8.2.Coevolutionary arms races -- Coevolution -- Insect--plant arms races -- Coevolution of parasites and their hosts -- 8.3.Mutualistic interactions -- Mutualistic protectors -- Farming crops or livestock -- |
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Contents note continued: Spatial heterogeneity -- Environmental harshness -- 10.3.Temporally varying factors influencing species richness -- Climatic variation and its absence -- Disturbance -- Environmental age: evolutionary time -- 10.4.Habitat area and remoteness: Island biogeography -- 10.5.Gradients of species richness -- Latitudinal gradients -- Gradients with altitude and depth -- Gradients during community succession -- Summary -- Review questions -- ch. 11 The flux of energy and matter through ecosystems -- 11.1.The role of energy in ecology -- 11.2.Geographic patterns in primary productivity -- 11.3.Factors limiting terrestrial primary productivity -- 11.4.Factors limiting aquatic primary productivity -- 11.5.The fate of primary productivity: grazing -- 11.6.The process of decomposition -- 11.7.The flux of matter through ecosystems -- 11.8.Nutrient budgets and cycling at the ecosystem scale -- Summary -- Review questions -- pt. 5 Applied Issues in Ecology -- |
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Contents note continued: The competitive exclusion principle -- Environmental heterogeneity -- 6.2.Evolutionary effects of interspecific competition -- Character displacement and ecological release in the Indian mongoose -- Character displacement in Canadian sticklebacks -- Evolution in action: selection on microorganisms -- 6.3.Interspecific competition and community structure -- Limiting resources and the regulation of diversity in phytoplankton communities -- Niche complementarity amongst anemone fish in Papua New Guinea -- Species separated in space or in time -- Spatial separation in trees and tree-root fungi -- Temporal separation in mantids and tundra plants -- 6.4.How significant is interspecific competition in practice? -- The prevalence of current competition -- Competition or mere chance? -- Summary -- Review questions -- ch. 7 Predation, grazing, and disease -- 7.1.What do we mean by predation? -- 7.2.Prey fitness and abundance -- 7.3.The subtleties of predation -- |
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Contents note continued: The dispersal of seeds and pollen -- Mutualistic gut inhabitants -- Mycorrhizas -- Fixation of atmospheric nitrogen in mutualistic plants -- Summary -- Review questions -- pt. 4 Communities and Ecosystems -- ch. 9 From populations to communities -- 9.1.Multiple determinants of the dynamics of populations -- Fluctuation or stability? -- Determination and regulation of abundance -- Using k-value analysis -- 9.2.Dispersal, patches, and metapopulation dynamics -- 9.3.Temporal patterns in community composition -- Founder-controlled and dominance-controlled communities -- Community succession -- 9.4.Food webs -- Indirect and direct effects -- Population and community stability and food web structure -- Summary -- Review questions -- ch. 10 Patterns in species richness -- 10.1.Quantifying species richness and diversity -- 10.2.Spatially varying factors influencing species richness -- Productivity and resource richness -- Energy -- Predation intensity -- |
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Contents note continued: What is an individual? -- Counting individuals, births, and deaths -- 5.2.Life cycles -- Life cycles and reproduction -- Annual life cycles -- Longer life cycles -- 5.3.Monitoring birth and death: life tables and fecundity schedules -- Cohort life tables -- Life tables for populations with overlapping generations -- A classification of survivorship curves -- 5.4.Dispersal and migration -- Dispersal determining abundance -- The role of migration -- 5.5.The impact of intraspecific competition on populations -- Patterns of population growth -- 5.6.Life history patterns -- Summary -- Review Questions -- ch. 6 Interspecific competition -- 6.1.Ecological effects of interspecific competition -- Competition amongst phytoplankton for phosphorus -- Coexistence and exclusion of competing salmonid fishes -- Some general observations -- Coexistence of competing diatoms -- Coexistence of competing birds -- Competition between unrelated species -- |
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Contents note continued: ch. 12 Global biogeochemical cycles and their alteration by humans -- 12.1.What is biogeochemistry? -- 12.2.The global carbon dioxide cycle -- Understanding the carbon dioxide sinks -- Effects of ocean acidification -- Will the terrestrial carbon dioxide sink change in the future? -- Can we reduce carbon dioxide emissions? -- 12.3.The global methane cycle -- The natural sources of methane -- Anthropogenic sources of methane -- Methane and the global climate system -- How do we reduce methane emissions? -- 12.4.The nitrogen cycle at global and regional scales -- Human acceleration of the nitrogen cycle -- The ecological and human-health costs of nitrogen -- Regional variation in nitrogen pollution -- How can we reduce nitrogen pollution? -- Summary -- Review questions -- ch. 13 Conservation ecology -- 13.1.The need for conservation -- 13.2.Small populations -- The classification of risk -- Demographic risks associated with small populations -- |
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Contents note continued: 3.4.Effects of intraspecific competition for resources -- 3.5.Conditions, resources, and the ecological niche -- Summary -- Review questions -- ch. 4 Climate and the world's biomes -- 4.1.The world's climate -- Redistribution of heat through atmospheric movement -- Ocean currents and the redistribution of heat -- 4.2.Terrestrial biomes -- Biomes and convergent evolution -- Tropical rain forest -- Savanna -- Temperate grasslands -- Desert -- Temperate forest -- Boreal forest (taiga) -- Tundra -- The future distribution of terrestrial biomes -- 4.3.Aquatic ecosystems on the continents -- Streams and rivers -- Lakes and ponds -- Wetlands -- 4.4.Ocean biomes -- The deep ocean -- Subtropical gyres -- Coastal upwelling systems -- Broad continental shelves -- Nearshore coastal marine ecosystems -- Summary -- Review questions -- pt. 3 Individuals and Populations -- ch. 5 Birth, death, and movement -- 5.1.Populations, individuals, births and deaths -- |
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Machine generated contents note: pt. 1 Introduction -- ch. 1 Ecology and how to do it -- 1.1.What is ecology? -- 1.2.Scales, diversity of approaches, and rigor -- Questions of scale -- The diversity of ecological evidence -- Statistics and scientific rigor -- 1.3.Ecology in practice -- Successions on old fields in Minnesota: a study in time and space -- Hubbard Brook: a long-term commitment to study at the ecosystem scale -- Canada's Experimental Lakes Area: decades of exploring the consequences of human activities on lakes -- An introduction of an exotic fish species to New Zealand: investigation on multiple biotic scales -- Why Asian vultures were heading for extinction: The value of a modeling study -- Summary -- Review questions -- ch. 2 Ecology's evolutionary backdrop -- 2.1.Evolution by natural selection -- 2.2.Evolution within species -- Geographical variation within species -- Variation within a species with man-made selection pressures -- Evolution and coevolution -- |
| Summary |
This book presents introductory ecology in a format designed to cultivate understanding of, and fascination with, the natural world |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Subject |
Biology.
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Ecology.
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Environmental sciences.
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Evolution (Biology)
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Natural selection.
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| Author |
Howarth, Robert Warren, author
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Townsend, Colin R., author
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| ISBN |
9780470909133 (paperback) |
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