Ecology of a Changed World
Ecology of a Changed World

Author: Trevor Price

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-08-26

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0197564194

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An increasing amount of usable space on our planet is crowded by humans. Whether we are using the space for permanent homes, vacation homes, travel accommodations, farming, public recreation, transportation, or office buildings, our chronic overuse of Earth's resources is pushing our ecosystem into uncharted territories. This has spurred many species extinctions, and we can expect the losses to continue to grow. Ecology of a Changed World outlines the importance of species conservation relative to human existence. The book breaks down ecological principles and explains six threats to biodiversity in terms anyone studying ecology, evolutionary biology, environmental science, or environmental justice will understand. Ecologist Trevor Price begins the book by breaking down population growth, food webs, species interaction, and other ecological principles. He draws on examples from agriculture, disease, fisheries, and societal growth throughout each chapter, offering insight into the relationships between demographic transitions, monetary exchanges, and ecosystems. Price focuses on six threats to biodiversity--climate change, overharvesting, pollution, habitat loss, invasive species, and disease--and offers the history, current status, and economic as well as environmental impacts of each of these. He ends the book with a rigorous review of the importance of species diversity, outlining the ways losses to our ecosystem will be a detriment to public health and global wealth. Taking readers through competition, predation, and parasitism, Ecology of a Changed World helpfully traces what has occurred on our planet throughout history, why these things happened, and how we can use this information to determine and shape our future.

Ecology of Climate Change
Ecology of Climate Change

Author: Eric Post

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-08-11

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0691148473

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Rising temperatures are affecting organisms in all of Earth's biomes, but the complexity of ecological responses to climate change has hampered the development of a conceptually unified treatment of them. In a remarkably comprehensive synthesis, this book presents past, ongoing, and future ecological responses to climate change in the context of two simplifying hypotheses, facilitation and interference, arguing that biotic interactions may be the primary driver of ecological responses to climate change across all levels of biological organization. Eric Post's synthesis and analyses of ecological consequences of climate change extend from the Late Pleistocene to the present, and through the next century of projected warming. His investigation is grounded in classic themes of enduring interest in ecology, but developed around novel conceptual and mathematical models of observed and predicted dynamics. Using stability theory as a recurring theme, Post argues that the magnitude of climatic variability may be just as important as the magnitude and direction of change in determining whether populations, communities, and species persist. He urges a more refined consideration of species interactions, emphasizing important distinctions between lateral and vertical interactions and their disparate roles in shaping responses of populations, communities, and ecosystems to climate change.

Industrial Ecology and Global Change
Industrial Ecology and Global Change

Author: R. Socolow

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 536

ISBN-13: 9780521577830

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Discusses a different approach to addressing environmental problems, aimed at a broad interdisciplinary audience.

Global Ecology
Global Ecology

Author: Vaclav Smil

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1134858795

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The magnitude and rapidity of global environmental change threatens the perpetuation of life on Earth. Many aspects of this crisis are familiar to us - the destruction of tropical rainforests, the hole in the Antarctic ozone, desertification, soil erosion - yet we avoid the underlying challenge of a rapidly deteriorating ecological system and the breadth and complexity of responses demanded. Integrating an analysis of both social and environmental needs, the book explores the premises and problems of different paths towards global management. With its emphasis on flexible response, Global Ecology furthers our understanding of biospheric change and of our abilities and weaknesses in managing the transition to a sustainable society.

Linguistic Ecology
Linguistic Ecology

Author: Peter Mühlhäusler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-11-01

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 1134934882

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this book, the author examines the transformation of the Pacific language region under the impact of colonization, westernization and modernization. By focusing on the linguistic and socio-historical changes of the past 200 years, it aims to bring a new dimension to the study of Pacific linguistics, which up until now has been dominated by questions of historical reconstruction and language typology. In contrast to the traditional portrayal of linguistic change as a natural process, the author focuses on the cultural and historical forces which drive language change. Using the metaphor of language ecology to explain and describe the complex interplay between languages, speakers and social practice, the author looks at how language ecologies have functioned in the past to sustain language diversity, and, at what happens when those ecologies are disrupted. Whilst most of the examples used in the book are taken from the Pacific and Australian region, the insights derived from this area are shown to have global applications. The text should be useful for linguists and all those interested in the large scale loss of human language.

Chance and Change
Chance and Change

Author: William H. Drury

Publisher: University of California Presson Demand

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 9780520211551

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The result of a lifetime in the field and in the classroom, Chance and Change challenges many of the tenets of establishment ecology. Charging that most of the environmental movement has ignored or rejected the changes in thinking that have infiltrated ecological theory since the mid 70s, William Drury presents a convincing case that disorder is what makes the natural world work, and that clinging to romantic notions of nature's grand design only saps the strength of the conservation movement. Drury's training in botany, geology, and zoology as well as his life-long devotion to work in the field gave him a depth and range of knowledge that few ecologists possess. This book opens our eyes to a new way of looking at the environment and forces us to think more deeply about nature and our role in it. Chance and Change is intended for the serious amateur naturalist or professional conservationist. Drury argues that chance and change are the rule, that the future is as unpredictable to other organisms as it is to us, and that natural disturbance is too frequent for equilibrium models to be useful. He stresses the centrality of natural selection in explaining the meaning of biology and insists the book and the laboratory must be checked at all times against the real world. Written in an easy, personal style, Drury's narrative comes alive with the landscape--the salt marshes, dunes, seashores, and forests--that he believed served as the best classroom. His novel approach of correlating landscape evolution with ecological principles offers a welcome corrective to discordance between what we observe in nature and what theory tells us we should see.

Climate Change and Social Ecology
Climate Change and Social Ecology

Author: Stephen M. Wheeler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 0415809851

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Industrial cultures have proved unable to confront the issues underlying the climate problem, such as overconsumption, overpopulation, inequity, and dysfunctional political systems. Political and social obstacles have prevented the adoption of improved technologies, and these would provide only a partial solution in any case. Climate Change and Social Ecologytakes a new approach to the climate crisis, arguing that climate change is a challenge of rapid social evolution. In order to address this impending catastrophe and bring about more sustainable development, this book argues that we must focus on improving social ecologies—our values, mind-sets, and organizations. The text presents a compelling vision of how to help social ecologies evolve toward sustainability and explores the social transformations needed to deal with the climate crisis in the long term. It reviews the climate change strategies considered to date, presents a detailed vision of a future sustainable society, and analyzes how this vision might be realized through more conscious public nurturing of our social ecologies. This interdisciplinary volume provides a compelling rethink of the climate crisis. Authoritative and accessible, it will be of great interest to anyone concerned about climate change and sustainability challenges and is essential reading for students, professionals, and general readers alike.

Bark Beetle Management, Ecology, and Climate Change
Bark Beetle Management, Ecology, and Climate Change

Author: Kamal J.K. Gandhi

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2021-10-28

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 0128224401

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Bark Beetle Management, Ecology, and Climate Change provides the most updated and comprehensive knowledge on the complex effects of global warming upon the economically and ecologically important bark beetle species and their host trees. This authoritative reference synthesizes information on how forest disturbances and environmental changes due to current and future climate changes alter the ecology and management of bark beetles in forested landscapes. Written by international experts on bark beetle ecology, this book covers topics ranging from changes in bark beetle distributions and addition of novel hosts due to climate change, interactions of insects with altered host physiology and disturbance regimes, ecosystem-level impacts of bark beetle outbreaks due to climate change, multi-trophic changes mediated via climate change, and management of bark beetles in altered forests and climate conditions. Bark Beetle Management, Ecology, and Climate Change is an important resource for entomologists, as well as forest health specialists, policy makers, and conservationists who are interested in multi-faceted impacts of climate change on forest insects at the organismal, population, and community-levels. The only book that addresses the impacts of global warming on bark beetles with feedback loops to forest patterns and processes Discusses altered disturbance regimes due to climate change with implications for bark beetles and associated organisms Led by a team of editors whose expertise includes entomology, pathology, ecology, forestry, modeling, and tree physiology

Environmental Change and Human Survival
Environmental Change and Human Survival

Author: Stephen Molnar

Publisher: Pearson

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780131760417

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book looks at human ecology by examining the linkages between human actions and environmental inputs. A historical context traces demographic and cultural developments through a series of demographic landmarks, and provides a balance to the book's survey of recent and contemporary populations. Chapter topics include ecological concepts; demographic landmarks of a successful species; technology, development and population; and health, disease, and diet. For active participants in the world we live in, who understand that our survival of environmental and social changes depends upon a clearer understanding of populations, society, and their adaptations.

Ecosystem Collapse and Climate Change
Ecosystem Collapse and Climate Change

Author: Josep G. Canadell

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-06-19

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 303071330X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Human-driven greenhouse emissions are increasing the velocity of climate change and the frequency and intensity of climate extremes far above historical levels. These changes, along with other human-perturbations, are setting the conditions for more rapid and abrupt ecosystem dynamics and collapse. This book presents new evidence on the rapid emergence of ecosystem collapse in response to the progression of anthropogenic climate change dynamics that are expected to intensify as the climate continues to warm. Discussing implications for biodiversity conservation, the chapters provide examples of such dynamics globally covering polar and boreal ecosystems, temperate and semi-arid ecosystems, as well as tropical and temperate coastal ecosystems. Given its scope, the volume appeals to scientists in the fields of general ecology, terrestrial and coastal ecology, climate change impacts, and biodiversity conservation.