Functional Adaptations of Marine Organisms gives an insight into the functional adaptations of marine organisms to natural and man-made sets of environmental factors. The book presents discussions on marine habitats; physiology of marine primary producers and decomposers; and functional adaptations of animals in relation to each major ecological divisions of the sea. The book will be of value to marine biologists, biologists, botanists, and students.
Adaptation to Environment: Essays on the Physiology of Marine Animals contains a series of essays that is intended as a review of the special adaptations of marine organisms to the particular environmental conditions they are likely to encounter in the natural habitat. This book emphasizes developments in physiology of marine animals and on approaches to the study of the adaptations of marine organisms. This compilation also interprets the term "Physiology in its widest sense to include all aspects of the functioning of the organism from the behavior of animals to the mode of function of enzymes. For this reason, structural adaptations have been reviewed in detail only where their functional role is understood and where they constitute a specific adaptation to defined environmental conditions. This publication benefits students and individuals conducting research on the physiology of marine animals.
This comprehensive book provides new insights into the morphological, metabolic, thermoregulatory, locomotory, diving, sensory, feeding, and sleep adaptations of Cetacea (whales and dolphins), Pinnipedia (seals, sea lions and walrus), Sirenia (manatees and dugongs) and sea otters for an aquatic life. Each chapter reviews the discoveries from previous studies and integrates recent research using new techniques and technology. Readers will gain an understanding of the remarkable adaptations that enable marine mammals to spend all or most of their lives at sea, often while hunting prey at depth.
This classroom resource provides clear, concise scientific information in an understandable and enjoyable way about water and aquatic life. Spanning the hydrologic cycle from rain to watersheds, aquifers to springs, rivers to estuaries, ample illustrations promote understanding of important concepts and clarify major ideas. Aquatic science is covered comprehensively, with relevant principles of chemistry, physics, geology, geography, ecology, and biology included throughout the text. Emphasizing water sustainability and conservation, the book tells us what we can do personally to conserve for the future and presents job and volunteer opportunities in the hope that some students will pursue careers in aquatic science. Texas Aquatic Science, originally developed as part of a multi-faceted education project for middle and high school students, can also be used at the college level for non-science majors, in the home-school environment, and by anyone who educates kids about nature and water. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
Environmental Adaptations examines the dynamic interaction between an organism and its external environment in order to emphasize the adaptive significance of its responses. Focusing on the adaptations of crustaceans, it bridges the gap between other volumes in the series which deal in detail with the functional machinery of crustaceans and those dealing with ecological, taxonomic, behavioral, and applied subjects. This book is divided into seven chapters. The first two chapters highlight the range of respiratory responses exhibited by crustaceans when subjected to various environmental factors. Chapter 3 summarizes the mechanisms by which crustaceans take up energy and food from the environment under fluctuating conditions. It also reviews the assimilation efficiencies of crustaceans and the predator-prey interaction. Chapter 4 deals with ionic and osmoregulation from the view of its interaction with the environment. It emphasizes the adaptive nature of chemical regulation that enables various crustaceans to inhabit waters ranging from hypersaline ponds to fresh water. Chapter 5 discusses how the various species are reproductively adapted to generate offspring in the tremendous diversity of habitats occupied by crustaceans. The last two chapters report on the specific adaptations of crustaceans to terrestrial and freshwater habitats. This book is a valuable source for zoologists, paleontologists, ecologists, physiologists, endocrinologists, morphologists, pathologists, and fisheries biologists, and an essential reference work for institutional libraries.
Within recent years man has become increasingly aware of the disastrous environmental changes that he has introduced, and therefore society is now more concerned about understanding the adaptations organisms have evolved in order to survive and flourish in their environment. Because much of the information pertaining to this subject is scattered in various journals or special symposia proceedings, our purpose in writing this book is to bring together in a college-and graduate-student text the principal concepts of the environmental physiology of the animals that inhabit one of the major realms of the earth, the sea. Our book is not meant to be a definitive treatise on the physiological adap tation of the animals that inhabit the marine environment. Instead, we have tried to highlight some of the physiological mechanisms through which these animals have been able to meet the challenges of their environment. We have not written this book for anyone particular scientific discipline; rather, we hope that it will have an interdisciplinary appeal. It is meant to be both a reference text and a text for teaching senior undergraduate and graduate courses in marine biology, physiological ecology of marine animals, and envi ronmental physiology of marine animals.
General Editor: Peter Calow, Department of Zoology, University of Sheffield, England The main aim of this series will be to illustrate and to explain the way organisms 'make a living' in nature. At the heart of this - their Junctional biology - is the way organisms acquire and then make use of resources in metabolism, movement, growth, reproduction, and so on. These processes will form the fundamental framework of all the books in the series. Each book will concentrate on a particular taxon (species, family, class or even phylum) and will bring together information on the form, physiology, ecology and evolutionary biology of the group. The aim will be not only to describe how organisms work, but also to consider why they have come to work in that way. By concentrating on taxa which are well known, it is hoped that the series will not only illustrate the success of selection, but also show the constraints imposed upon it by the physiological, morphological and developmental limitations of the groups. Another important feature of the series will be its organismic orientation. Each book will emphasize the importance of functional integration in the day-to-day lives and the evolution of organisms. This is crucial since, though it may be true that organisms can be considered as collections of gene determined traits, they nevertheless interact with their environment as integrated wholes and it is in this context that individual traits have been subjected to natural selection and have evolved.
