Books in Ecosystems communities and organisms

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The Riverine Ecosystem Synthesis

• 1st Edition
• August 6, 2008
• James H. Thorp + 2 more
• English
• Hardback 978-0-12-370612-6

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• eBook 978-0-08-088800-2

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This book presents the most comprehensive model yet for describing the structure and functioning of running freshwater ecosystems. Riverine Ecosystems Synthesis (RES) is a result of combining several theories published in recent decades, dealing with aquatic and terrestrial systems. New analyses are fused with a variety of new perspectives on how river network ecosystems are structured and function, and how they change along longitudinal, lateral, and temporal dimensions. Among these novel perspectives is a dramatically new view of the role of hydrogeomorphic forces in forming functional process zones from headwaters to the mouths of great rivers. Designed as a useful tool for aquatic scientists worldwide whether they work on small streams or great rivers and in forested or semi-arid regions, this book will provide a means for scientists to understand the fundamental and applied aspects of rivers in general and includes a practical guide and protocols for analyzing individual rivers. Specific examples of rivers in at least four continents (Africa, Australia, Europe and North America) serve to illustrate the power and utility of the RES concept.

Dynamic Food Webs

• 1st Edition
• Volume 3
• December 13, 2005
• Peter C de Ruiter + 2 more
• English
• eBook 978-0-08-046094-9

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Dynamic Food Webs challenges us to rethink what factors may determine ecological and evolutionary pathways of food web development. It touches upon the intriguing idea that trophic interactions drive patterns and dynamics at different levels of biological organization: dynamics in species composition, dynamics in population life-history parameters and abundances, and dynamics in individual growth, size and behavior. These dynamics are shown to be strongly interrelated governing food web structure and stability and the role of populations and communities play in ecosystem functioning. Dynamic Food Webs not only offers over 100 illustrations, but also contains 8 riveting sections devoted to an understanding of how to manage the effects of environmental change, the protection of biological diversity and the sustainable use of natural resources. Dynamic Food Webs is a volume in the Theoretical Ecology series.

The Chemistry of Evolution

• 1st Edition
• December 6, 2005
• R.J.P Williams + 1 more
• English
• eBook 978-0-08-046211-0

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Conventionally, evolution has always been described in terms of species. The Chemistry of Evolution takes a novel, not to say revolutionary, approach and examines the evolution of chemicals and the use and degradation of energy, coupled to the environment, as the drive behind it. The authors address the major changes of life from bacteria to man in a systematic and unavoidable sequence, reclassifying organisms as chemotypes. Written by the authors of the bestseller The Biological Chemistry of the Elements - The Inorganic Chemistry of Life, the clarity and precision of The Chemistry of Evolution plainly demonstrate that life is totally interactive with the environment. This exciting theory makes this work an essential addition to the academic and public library.

Food Webs: From Connectivity to Energetics

• 1st Edition
• Volume 36
• April 11, 2005
• Luo Yiqi
• English
• eBook 978-0-08-049029-8

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The most recent volume of this series, Advances in Ecological Research, demonstrates a captivating knowledge of recent advances in the analysis of food webs. A food web describes the network of predator-prey interactions within a community. The simplest description of a food web specifies only who eats whom (a connectance web), with no indication of how much or how often. Chapters in this book begin with a discussion of the most detailed connectance webs ever compiled, and advance to incorporate information on the body size and numerical abundance of the species. The results yield new ways of describing food webs and powerful new models for estimating patterns of energy flow in ecosystems.

Fundamentals of Soil Ecology

• 2nd Edition
• July 19, 2004
• David C. Coleman + 1 more
• English
• eBook 978-0-08-047281-2

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This fully revised and expanded edition of Fundamentals of Soil Ecology continues its holistic approach to soil biology and ecosystem function. Students and ecosystem researchers will gain a greater understanding of the central roles that soils play in ecosystem development and function. The authors emphasize the increasing importance of soils as the organizing center for all terrestrial ecosystems and provide an overview of theory and practice of soil ecology, both from an ecosystem and evolutionary biology point of view. This volume contains updated and greatly expanded coverage of all belowground biota (roots, microbes and fauna) and methods to identify and determine its distribution and abundance. New chapters are provided on soil biodiversity and its relationship to ecosystem processes, suggested laboratory and field methods to measure biota and their activities in ecosystems..

Ecosystems of the Deep Oceans

• 1st Edition
• Volume 28
• March 27, 2003
• P.A. Tyler
• English
• eBook 978-0-08-049465-4

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This volume examines the deep sea ecosystem from a variety of perspectives. The initial chapters examine the deep-sea floor, the deep pelagic environment and the more specialised chemosynthetic environments of hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. These environments are examined from the perspective of the relationship of deep-sea animals to their physico-chemical environment.Later chapters examine the biogeography of the main deep oceans (Atlantic, Pacific and Indian) with particular attention to the downward flux of surface-derived organic matter and how this drives the processes within the deep-sea ecosystem. The peripheral deep seas including the polar seas and the marginal deep seas (inter alia the Mediterranean, Red, Caribbean and Okhotsk seas) are explored in the same context. The final chapters examine the processes occurring in the deep sea and include an analysis of why the deep sea has high species diversity, how the fauna respond to organic input and how species have adapted reproductive activity in the deep sea. The volume concludes with an analysis of the anthropogenic impact on the deep sea.

Large Marine Ecosystems of the North Atlantic

• 1st Edition
• Volume 10
• April 16, 2002
• H.R. Skjoldal + 1 more
• English
• eBook 978-0-08-053538-8

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This is the first book to provide assessments of multidecadal changes in resources and environments of the Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) of the North Atlantic. Using the case study method, researchers examine the forces driving the changes and actions underway aimed at turning the corner from declining trends in biomass yields, toward recovery of depleted species populations and improvements in ecosystem integrity.Recently a distinguished group of 24 scientists argued eloquently that a new Sustainability Science was emerging that was focused on "meeting fundamental human needs while preserving the life support systems of planet Earth". The contributions contained in this volume are at the cutting edge of Sustainability Science and the results presented by the contributors are pertinent to one of the core questions: "How are long-term trends in environment and development, including consumption and population, reshaping nature-society interactions in ways relevant to sustainability?" (Science Vol. 292, 27 April 2001). The case studies demonstrate the utility of an ecosystem-based approach to the assessment and management of biomass yields and species sustainability.Movements toward ecosystem-based management have emerged from the case studies on the initiation of recoveries of several depleted groundfish stocks of the US Northeast Shelf LME; the collapse of the Newfoundland-Labrador Shelf cod; the assessment of physical and biological changes on the Scotian Shelf, West Greenland Shelf, Iceland Shelf LME, and the Faroe Plateau, the North Sea, and the Barents Sea LMEs. Uncertainties, with regard to environmental and human-generated forcing, are addressed in assessment of the states of the Iberian Coastal and Biscay-Celtic LMEs, and in broad-scale studies of the influences at the base of the food chain of climatic variability on the productivity and biodiversity of plankton communities of the North Atlantic. The volume concludes with an insightful perspective on the approaches used and the results reported by the eminent marine scientist and former President of ICES, Professor Gotthilf Hempel.

Long-Term Studies of Vertebrate Communities

• 1st Edition
• October 15, 1996
• Martin L. Cody + 1 more
• English
• Hardback 978-0-12-178075-3

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• eBook 978-0-08-053562-3

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This unique book synthesizes the ongoing long-term community ecology studies of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The studies have been conducted from deserts to rainforests as well as in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine habitats and provide valuable insight that can be obtained only through persistent, diligent, and year-after-year investigation.Long-Term Studies of Vertebrate Communities is ideal for faculty, researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates in vertebrate biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology, including ecology, natural history, and systematics.

Introduction to Ecological Biochemistry

• 4th Edition
• October 25, 1993
• J. B. Harborne
• English
• Hardback 978-0-12-324685-1

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• eBook 978-0-08-091859-4

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Ecological biochemistry concerns the biochemistry of interactions between animals, plants and the environment, and includes such diverse subjects as plant adaptations to soil pollutants and the effects of plant toxins on herbivores. The intriguing dependence of the Monarch butterfly on its host plants is chosen as an example of plant-animal coevolution in action. The ability to isolate trace amounts of a substance from plant tissues has led to a wealth of new research, and the fourth edition of this well-known text has consequently been extensively revised. New sections have been provided on the cost of chemical defence and on the release of predator-attracting volatiles from plants. New information has been included on cyanogenesis, the protective role of tannins in plants and the phenomenon of induced defence in plant leaves following herbivory. Advanced level students and research workers aloke will find much of value in this comprehensive text, written by an acknowledged expert on this fascinating subject.

Water at the Surface of Earth

• 1st Edition
• August 28, 1982
• David M. Miller
• English
• eBook 978-0-08-092477-9

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Water at the Surface of the Earth: An Introduction to Ecosystem Hydrodynamics provides an introduction to the ways in which biological, physical, cultural, and urban systems at the surface of the earth operate, with a particular focus on the hydrodynamics of ecosystems, i.e., water and its association with other forms of matter, including pollutants, and with several forms of energy. The chapter sequence in this book follows the downward progress of water from the lower atmosphere, through ecosystems at the earth's surface, through the soil and mantle rock, to the ""waters under the earth."" In other words, the book begins with input of water to ecosystems, then describes how it is processed in these systems, and ends with the liquid water yield from them. The book first discusses storms in the atmosphere. These are systems that convert inflows of water vapor into outflows of raindrops and snowflakes that are precipitated to the underlying surface. This is followed by separate chapters on how water is delivered from the atmosphere to surface ecosystems; water budgets at the surface and in the soil; evaporation from these systems back to the atmosphere; water in the local air and rocks; and horizontal movement of water transformed by ecosystems where the preceding storages and fluxes were located.