Featured Resource(s)
Food Webs at the Landscape Level by
Scientists rely on food webs?complex networks that trace the flow of nutrients and energy between species and through ecosystems?to understand the infrastructure of ecological communities. But given the complexities of food webs?think of following the flow of nutrients through the microbes, fungi, roots, worms, ants, and birds that pass over or through a single cubic meter of prairie soil?it's not difficult to see why most experiments on food-web dynamics focus on small, local habitats. Yet as this book convincingly shows, important insights come when scientists expand the temporal and spatial scope of their research to look at the ways energy, organisms, nutrients, and pollutants flow not just at the local level, but across whole landscapes?between and among food webs in a wide variety of habitats. Paying special attention to the fertile boundaries between terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, Food Webs at the Landscape Level not only shows what this new methodology means for ecology, conservation, and agriculture but also serves as a fitting tribute to Gary Polis and his major contributions to the field.
Call Number: QH541 .F65 2004ISBN: 0226673251Publication Date: 2004-02-22
Dynamic Food Webs by
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.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 0120884585Publication Date: 2005-12-20
Dynamic Changes in Marine Ecosystems by
Recent scientific literature has raised many concerns about whether fisheries have caused more extensive changes to marine populations and ecosystems than previously realized or predicted. In many cases, stocks have been exploited far beyond management targets, and new analyses indicate that fishing has harmed other species—including marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles, and sea grasses—either directly through catch or habitat damage, or indirectly through changes in food-web interactions. At the request of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Research Council conducted an independent study to weigh the collective evidence for fishery-induced changes to marine ecosystems and the implications of the findings for U.S. fisheries management. Dynamic Changes in Marine Ecosystems provides comprehensive information in regard to these findings.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 030910050XPublication Date: 2006-07-26
Dynamic Changes in Marine Ecosystems by
Recent scientific literature has raised many concerns about whether fisheries have caused more extensive changes to marine populations and ecosystems than previously realized or predicted. In many cases, stocks have been exploited far beyond management targets, and new analyses indicate that fishing has harmed other species—including marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles, and sea grasses—either directly through catch or habitat damage, or indirectly through changes in food-web interactions. At the request of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Research Council conducted an independent study to weigh the collective evidence for fishery-induced changes to marine ecosystems and the implications of the findings for U.S. fisheries management. Dynamic Changes in Marine Ecosystems provides comprehensive information in regard to these findings.
Call Number: QH545.F53 D96 2006ISBN: 9780309100502Publication Date: 2006-07-26
Food Web Dynamics Books & E-Books
Aquatic Food Webs by
This volume provides a current synthesis of theoretical and empirical food web research. Whether they are binary systems or weighted networks, food webs are of particular interest to ecologists in providing a macroscopic view of ecosystems. They describe interactions between species and theirenvironment, and subsequent advances in the understanding of their structure, function, and dynamics are of vital importance to ecosystem management and conservation. Aquatic Food Webs provides a synthesis of the current issues in food web theory and its applications, covering issues of structure,function, scaling, complexity, and stability in the contexts of conservation, fisheries, and climate. Although the focus of this volume is upon aquatic food webs (where many of the recent advances have been made), any ecologist with an interest in food web theory and its applications will find theissues addressed in this book of value and use. This advanced textbook is suitable for graduate level students as well as professional researchers in community, ecosystem, and theoretical ecology, in aquatic ecology, and in conservation biology.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9780198564836Publication Date: 2005-06-23
Population Dynamics in Prehistory and Early History by
Migrations and population dynamics are considered very problematic topics in the fields of ancient studies. Recent scholarship in (pre)historical population has generated new impulses by using scientific approaches using radiogenic and stable isotopes, and palaeogenetics, as well as computer simulation. As a result, the state of migration research has undergone rapid change. Several research groups presented papers at aconference held in Berlin in 2010, addressing specific historical aspects of population dynamics and migration, with no chronological or geographical restrictions, in the light of cutting-edge bio-archaeological research. This volume, divided into three larger thematic sections (isotope analysis, population genetics, and modelling and computer simulation), presents experiences and insights about methodological approaches, research results and prospects for future research in this area in a varied collection of papers. Scholars from widely diverse scientific disciplines present their approaches, findings and interpretations to an audience far broader than the circles of the individual disciplines.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9783110266290Publication Date: 2012-05-29
Food Webs and Biodiversity by
Food webs have now been addressed in empirical and theoretical research for more than 50 years. Yet, even elementary foundational issues are still hotly debated. One difficulty is that a multitude of processes need to be taken into account to understand the patterns found empirically in the structure of food webs and communities. Food Webs and Biodiversity develops a fresh, comprehensive perspective on food webs. Mechanistic explanations for several known macroecological patterns are derived from a few fundamental concepts, which are quantitatively linked to field-observables. An argument is developed that food webs will often be the key to understanding patterns of biodiversity at community level. Key Features: Predicts generic characteristics of ecological communities in invasion-extirpation equilibrium. Generalizes the theory of competition to food webs with arbitrary topologies. Presents a new, testable quantitative theory for the mechanisms determining species richness in food webs, and other new results. Written by an internationally respected expert in the field. With global warming and other pressures on ecosystems rising, understanding and protecting biodiversity is a cause of international concern. This highly topical book will be of interest to a wide ranging audience, including not only graduate students and practitioners in community and conservation ecology but also the complex-systems research community as well as mathematicians and physicists interested in the theory of networks. "This is a comprehensive work outlining a large array of very novel and potentially game-changing ideas in food web ecology." --Ken Haste Andersen, Technical University of Denmark "I believe that this will be a landmark book in community ecology ... it presents a well-established and consistent mathematical theory of food-webs. It is testable in many ways and the author finds remarkable agreements between predictions and reality." --Géza Meszéna, Eötvös University, Budapest
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9780470973554Publication Date: 2013-08-05
Food Webs (MPB-50) by
Human impacts are dramatically altering our natural ecosystems but the exact repercussions on ecological sustainability and function remain unclear. As a result, food web theory has experienced a proliferation of research seeking to address these critical areas. Arguing that the various recent and classical food web theories can be looked at collectively and in a highly consistent and testable way, Food Webs synthesizes and reconciles modern and classical perspectives into a general unified theory. Kevin McCann brings together outcomes from population-, community-, and ecosystem-level approaches under the common currency of energy or material fluxes. He shows that these approaches--often studied in isolation--all have the same general implications in terms of population dynamic stability. Specifically, increased fluxes of energy or material tend to destabilize populations, communities, and whole ecosystems. With this understanding, stabilizing structures at different levels of the ecological hierarchy can be identified and any population-, community-, or ecosystem-level structures that mute energy or material flow also stabilize systems dynamics. McCann uses this powerful general framework to discuss the effects of human impact on the stability and sustainability of ecological systems, and he demonstrates that there is clear empirical evidence that the structures supporting ecological systems have been dangerously eroded. Uniting the latest research on food webs with classical theories, this book will be a standard source in the understanding of natural food web functions.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9780691134178Publication Date: 2011-12-11
Food Chains by
Food chains are representations of the predator-prey relationships between species within an ecosystem or habitat. Organisms in a food chain are grouped into trophic levels, based on how many links they are removed from the primary producers. In this book, the authors present current research across a broad spectrum in the study of food chains, including ciguatera shellfish poisoning; survival domain of the top-predator in lattice ecosystems; the Azorean cheesemaking food chain; trophic interactions on Holocene ostracod population and arsenic exposure through the food chain.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9781613243770Publication Date: 2011-11-01
Energetic Food Webs by
This novel book bridges the gap between the energetic and species approaches to studying food webs, addressing many important topics in ecology. Species, matter, and energy are common features of all ecological systems. Through the lens of complex adaptive systems thinking, the authors explore how the inextricable relationship between species, matter, and energy can explain how systems are structured and how they persist in real and model systems. Food webs areviewed as open and dynamic systems. The central theme of the book is that the basis of ecosystem persistence and stability rests on the interplay between the rates of input of energy into the system from living and dead sources, and the patterns in utilization of energy that result from the trophicinteractions among species within the system. To develop this theme, the authors integrate the latest work on community dynamics, ecosystem energetics, and stability. In so doing, they present a unified ecology that dispels the categorization of the field into the separate subdisciplines of population, community, and ecosystem ecology.Energetic Food Webs is suitable for both graduate level students and professional researchers in the general field of ecology. It will be of particular relevance and use to those working in the specific areas of food webs, species dynamics, material and energy cycling, as well as community and ecosystem ecology.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9780191646416Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Ecological Networks by
This thematic volume represents an important and exciting benchmark in the study of food webs and other ecological networks, synthesizing and showcasing current research and highlighting future directions for the development of the field.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9780123813633Publication Date: 2010-11-17
Ecological Interactions by
Food webs, energy flow, indirect effects, and nutrient cycling are described as properties that emerge in ecological systems. Several of these properties are shown in this book to result from indirect effects and interactions between species and abiotic components of ecological systems. For instance, top predators affect organisms with which they do not directly interact, including plants and non-prey animals. In some other interactions, including competition, the nonliving components of ecological systems (the abiota) can alter the outcome of a biotic interaction. A limiting resource often results in competition, but varying environmental conditions allow for species coexistence. Finally, this book illustrates how energy flows in ecological systems, why it is rather inefficient, and how species interactions relate to homeostasis and emergent properties. In the course of that discussion, primary production, secondary production, and trophic levels are defined. Energy flow in ecological systems is tied to the carbon cycle.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9781606509562Publication Date: 2016-04-27
Ecology, Genetics and Evolution of Metapopulations by
Ecology, Genetics and Evolution of Metapopulations is acollection of specially commissioned articles that looks at fragmented habitats, bringing together recent theoretical advances and empirical studies applying the metapopulation approach. Several chapters closely integrate ecology with genetics and evolutionary biology, and others illustrate how metapopulation concepts and models can be applied to answer questions about conservation, epidemiology, and speciation. The extensive coverage of theory from highly regarded scientists and the many substantive applications in this one-of-a-kind work make it invaluable to graduate students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 0123234484Publication Date: 2004-05-17
Adaptation in Metapopulations by
All organisms live in clusters, but such fractured local populations, or demes, nonetheless maintain connectivity with one another by some amount of gene flow between them. Most such metapopulations occur naturally, like clusters of amphibians in vernal ponds or baboon troops spread across the African veldt. Others have been created as human activities fragment natural landscapes, as in stands of trees separated by roads. As landscape change has accelerated, understanding how these metapopulations function--and specifically how they adapt--has become crucial to ecology and to our very understanding of evolution itself. With Adaptation in Metapopulations, Michael J. Wade explores a key component of this new understanding of evolution: interaction. Synthesizing decades of work in the lab and in the field in a book both empirically grounded and underpinned by a strong conceptual framework, Wade looks at the role of interaction across scales from gene selection to selection at the level of individuals, kin, and groups. In so doing, he integrates molecular and organismal biology to reveal the true complexities of evolutionary dynamics from genes to metapopulations.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9780226129563Publication Date: 2016-05-03
Food Webs and the Dynamics of Marine Reefs by
Biologists have made significant advances in our understanding of the Earth's shallow subtidal marine ecosystems, but the findings on these disparate regions have never before been documented and gathered in a single volume. Now, in Food Webs and the Dynamics of Marine Reefs, Tim R.McClanahan and George M. Branch fill this lacuna with a comparative and comprehensive collection of nine essays written by experts on specific aquatic regions. Each essay focuses on the food webs of a respective ecosystem and the factors affecting these communities, from the intense and directpressure of human influence on fisheries to the multi-vector contributors to climate change. The book covers nine shallow water marine ecosystems from selected areas throughout the world: four coral reef systems, three hard bottom systems, and two kelp systems. In summarizing their organization,human influence on them, and recent developments in these ecosystems, the authors contribute to our understanding of their ecological organization and management. Food Webs and the Dynamics of Marine Reefs will be a useful tool for all benthic marine investigators, providing an expert, comparativeview of these aquatic regions.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9780195319958Publication Date: 2008-04-16
Complex Population Dynamics (V7) by
This collection of review articles is devoted to the modeling of ecological, epidemiological and evolutionary systems. Theoretical mathematical models are perhaps one of the most powerful approaches available for increasing our understanding of the complex population dynamics in these natural systems. Exciting new techniques are currently being developed to meet this challenge, such as generalized or structural modeling, adaptive dynamics or multiplicative processes. Many of these new techniques stem from the field of nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory, where even the simplest mathematical rule can generate a rich variety of dynamical behaviors that bear a strong analogy to biological populations.
Call Number: E-BOOKISBN: 9789812771575Publication Date: 2007-09-01
Stochastic Population Dynamics in Ecology and Conservation by
All populations fluctuate stochastically, creating a risk of extinction that does not exist in deterministic models, with fundamental consequences for both pure and applied ecology. This book provides the most comprehensive introduction to stochastic population dynamics, combining classicalbackground material with a variety of modern approaches, including new and previously unpublished results by the authors, illustrated with examples from bird and mammal populations, and insect communities.
Call Number: QH352 .L36 2003ISBN: 0198525249Publication Date: 2003-06-12
Population Dynamics in Ecological Space and Time by
As profound threats to ecosystems increase worldwide, ecologists must move beyond studying single communities at a single point in time. All of the dynamic, interconnected spatial and temporal processes that determine the distribution and abundance of species must be understood in order to develop new conservation and management strategies. This volume is the first to integrate mathematical and biological approaches to these crucial topics. The editors include not only a wide variety of theoretical approaches, but also a broad range of experimental and field studies, with chapters written by renowned experts in community ecology, ecological modeling, population genetics, and conservation biology. In addition to providing new insights into well-known topics such as migration, the authors also introduce some less familiar subjects, including bacterial population genetics and ecotoxicology. For anyone interested in the study, management, and conservation of populations, this book will prove to be a valuable resource.
Call Number: QH352 .P628 1996ISBN: 0226710572Publication Date: 1996-08-01
Ecology of Populations by
The theme of the book is the distribution and abundance of organisms in space and time. The core of the book lies in how local births and deaths are tied to emigration and immigration processes, and how environmental variability at different scales affects population dynamics with stochastic processes and spatial structure and shows how elementary analytical tools can be used to understand population fluctuations, synchrony, processes underlying range distributions and community structure and species coexistence. The book also shows how spatial population dynamics models can be used to understand life history evolution and aspects of evolutionary game theory. Although primarily based on analytical and numerical analyses of spatial population processes, data from several study systems are also dealt with.
Call Number: QH352 .R36 2006ISBN: 0521854350Publication Date: 2005-12-30
Food Webs by
Food-web research has recently experienced a surge of activity fueled by new empirical data and innovative theories. Over the past decade and a half, food web has been equated to a large extent with food-web theory, a body of explanations for regularities observed in the features of simple food webs reported in the literature. In recent years, it has become clear that real food webs are much more complex and dynamic than was portrayed by earlier studies. Current research documents the complexity and variability of food webs, and seeks to explain patterns in the structure and function of food webs. Moreover, the integration of food-web patterns with ecological dynamics has become a major goal that ultimately will link food webs with other levels of the biological hierarchy. Major issues covered by the book include: the role of nutrients, detritus and microbes in food webs; indirect effects in food webs; the interaction of productivity and consumption; linking cause and effect in food webs; temporal and spatial scales of food-web dynamics; applications of food webs to pest management, fisheries, and ecosystem stress.
Call Number: QH541 .F66 1996ISBN: 0412040514Publication Date: 1995-12-01
Food Webs by
Food webs are diagrams depicting which species interact or in other words, who eats whom. An understanding of the structure and function of food webs is crucial for any study of how an ecosystem works, including attempts to predict which communities might be more vulnerable to disturbance and therefore in more immediate need of conservation. Although it was first published twenty years ago, Stuart Pimm's Food Webs remains the clearest introduction to the study of food webs. Reviewing various hypotheses in the light of theoretical and empirical evidence, Pimm shows that even the most complex food webs follow certain patterns and that those patterns are shaped by a limited number of biological processes, such as population dynamics and energy flow. Pimm provides a variety of mathematical tools for unravelling these patterns and processes, and demonstrates their application through concrete examples. For this edition, he has written a new foreword covering recent developments in the study of food webs and demonstrates their continuing importance to conservation biology.
Call Number: QH541 .P56 2002ISBN: 0226668320Publication Date: 2002-05-30
The Economy of Nature by
This concise and accessible introduction offers a broad and balanced view of all the major aspects of ecology, from the ecosystem and evolution to population and community. Full of examples from natural history, the 5th edition of The Economy of Nature blends the major principles and concepts of natural history with the idea of ecology as a practical science that confronts real problems affecting us all.
Call Number: QH541 .R54 2001ISBN: 9780716738831Publication Date: 2000-11-21
Coastal Ecosystem Processes by
Coastal Ecosystem Processes, written by the renowned marine scientist Daniel Alongi, describes how pelagic and benthic food webs, from beaches and tidal flats to the continental edge, process energy and matter. This volume focuses on recent advances and new developments on how food webs are closely intertwined with the geology, chemistry, and physics of coastal seas. Dr. Alongi presents a process-functional approach as a way of understanding how the energetics of coastal ecosystems rely not only on exchanges within and between food chains, but how such functions are influenced by terrigenous and atmospheric processes. There is a need for documentation and an awareness of just how necessary, yet delicate, is the interplay of biological and physical forces between coastal ocean, land, and the atmosphere. Marine scientists today need to make informed management decisions about sustainable development and conservation of these fragile ecosystems. Coastal Ecosystem Processes provides present and future marine scientists the latest coastal ecosystem information to make the right decisions concerning the ecology of our oceans.
Call Number: QH541.5.C65 A58 1998ISBN: 0849384265Publication Date: 1997-10-28
Food Chains, Yields, Models and Management of Large Marine Ecosystems by
Draws on case studies from tropical, temperate, and Arctic waters around the world, comparing multispecies biomass yield models for various large marine ecosystems. Emphasis is given to adaptive management as a strategy for maximizing the sustainability and productivity of living marine resources.
Call Number: QH541.5.S3 F66 1991ISBN: 0813383862Publication Date: 1991-12-29
Biodiversity Dynamics by
How will patterns of human interaction with the earth's eco-system impact on biodiversity loss over the long term--not in the next ten or even fifty years, but on the vast temporal scale be dealt with by earth scientists? This volume brings together data from population biology, community ecology, comparative biology, and paleontology to answer this question.
Call Number: QH541.15.B56 B574 1998ISBN: 0231104146Publication Date: 1998-11-25
Trophic Ecology by
As researchers try to predict the effects of human modification at all trophic levels and mediate the impact of rapid environmental change, it has become clear it is no longer a matter of agreeing that both bottom-up and top-down forces play important roles in diverse ecosystems. Rather, the question is: how do these forces interact across aquatic and terrestrial systems? Written by leading experts in the field, this book presents a unique synthesis of trophic relationships within and across ecosystems that is a valuable foundation for the development of cross-system, multidisciplinary research. It also provides new insights into population biology and community ecology and examines the interactive effects of bottom-up and top-down forces on biodiversity at each trophic level. A one-stop resource for learning about bottom-up and top-down interactions, this book encourages discussion and collaboration among researchers to identify similarities and differences in trophic interactions across aquatic and terrestrial systems.
Call Number: QH541.15.F66 T765 2015ISBN: 9781107077324Publication Date: 2015-05-07
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