Predators with Pouches
Predators with Pouches

Author: Menna Jones

Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING

Published: 2003-04-30

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13: 0643099484

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Predators with Pouches provides a unique synthesis of current knowledge of the world’s carnivorous marsupials—from Patagonia to New Guinea and North America to Tasmania. Written by 63 experts in each field, the book covers a comprehensive range of disciplines including evolution and systematics, reproductive biology, physiology, ecology, behaviour and conservation. Predators with Pouches reveals the relationships between the American didelphids and the Australian dasyurids, and explores the role of the marsupial fauna in the mammal community. It introduces the geologically oldest marsupials, from the Americas, and examines the fall from former diversity of the larger marsupial carnivores and their convergent evolution with placental forms. The book covers all aspects of carnivorous marsupials, including interesting features of life history, their unique reproduction, the physiological basis for early senescence in semelparous dasyurids, sex ratio variation and juvenile dispersal. It looks at gradients in nutrition—from omnivory to insectivory to carnivory—as well as distributional ecology, social structure and conservation dilemmas.

Ecological and Environmental Physiology of Mammals
Ecological and Environmental Physiology of Mammals

Author: Philip Carew Withers

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 607

ISBN-13: 0199642710

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This book summarizes our current knowledge of the complex and sophisticated physiological models that mammals provide for survival in a wide variety of ecological and environmental contexts: terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic.

Carnivores of Australia
Carnivores of Australia

Author: Alistair Glen

Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING

Published: 2014-11-05

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0643103171

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The Australian continent provides a unique perspective on the evolution and ecology of carnivorous animals. In earlier ages, Australia provided the arena for a spectacular radiation of marsupial and reptilian predators. The causes of their extinctions are still the subject of debate. Since European settlement, Australia has seen the extinction of one large marsupial predator (the thylacine), another (the Tasmanian devil) is in danger of imminent extinction, and still others have suffered dramatic declines. By contrast, two recently-introduced predators, the fox and cat, have been spectacularly successful, with devastating impacts on the Australian fauna. Carnivores of Australia: Past, Present and Future explores Australia's unique predator communities from pre-historic, historic and current perspectives. It covers mammalian, reptilian and avian carnivores, both native and introduced to Australia. It also examines the debate surrounding how best to manage predators to protect livestock and native biodiversity. Readers will benefit from the most up-to-date synthesis by leading researchers and managers in the field of carnivore biology. By emphasising Australian carnivores as exemplars of flesh-eaters in other parts of the world, this book will be an important reference for researchers, wildlife managers and students worldwide.

Temperature Biology of Animals
Temperature Biology of Animals

Author: Andrew Cossins

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 9400931271

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Temperature is one facet in the mosaic of physical and biotic factors that describes the niche of an animal. Ofthe physical factors it is ecologically the most important. for it is a factor that is all-pervasive and one that. in most environments. lacks spatial or temporal constancy. Evolution has produced a wide variety of adaptive strategies and tactics to exploit or deal with this variable environmental factor. The ease with which temperature can be measured. and controlled experimentally. together with its widespread influence on the affairs of animals. has understandably led to a large. dispersed literature. In spite of this no recent book provides a comprehensive treatment of the biology of animals in relation to temperature. Our intention in writing this book was to fill that gap. We hope we have provided a modern statement with a critical synthesis of this diverse field. which will be suitable and stimulating for both advanced undergraduate and post graduate students of biology. This book is emphatically not intended as a monographical review. as thermal biology is such a diverse. developed discipline that it could not be encompassed within the confines of a book of this size.

Status of Conservation and Decline of Amphibians
Status of Conservation and Decline of Amphibians

Author: Harold Heatwole

Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING

Published: 2018-06

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1486308392

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Amphibians are among the most threatened groups of animals on earth. In part due to their highly permeable skin, amphibians are highly sensitive to environmental changes and pollution and provide an early-warning system of deteriorating environmental conditions. The more we learn about the impact of environmental changes on amphibians, the better we as humans will be able to arrest their demise, and our own. Status of Conservation and Decline of Amphibians brings together the current knowledge on the status of the unique frogs of Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific. Although geographically proximate, each region presents unique challenges and opportunities in amphibian research and conservation. This book contributes to an understanding of the current conservation status of the amphibians of each region, aims to stimulate research into halting amphibian declines, and provides a better foundation for making conservation decisions. It is an invaluable reference for environmental and governmental agencies, researchers, policy-makers involved with biodiversity conservation, and the interested public.

Phylogeny and Conservation
Phylogeny and Conservation

Author: Andy Purvis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-09-22

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 9780521825023

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Phylogeny is a potentially powerful tool for conserving biodiversity. This book explores how it can be used to tackle questions of great practical importance and urgency for conservation. Using case studies from many different taxa and regions of the world, the volume evaluates how useful phylogeny is in understanding the processes that have generated today's diversity and the processes that now threaten it. The urgency with which conservation decisions have to be made as well as the need for the best possible decisions make this volume of great value to researchers, practitioners and policy-makers.

The Biology and Conservation of Australasian Bats
The Biology and Conservation of Australasian Bats

Author: Bradley Law

Publisher: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 509

ISBN-13: 0980327245

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This book, the Biology and Conservation of Australasian Bats, follows from the successful 3-day forum of the same name held in April 2007 at the Australian Museum. The forum was organised jointly by the Royal Zoological Society of NSW and the Australasian Bat Society.

Freshwater Turtles of Australia
Freshwater Turtles of Australia

Author: John Cann

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9781486308248

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Freshwater Turtles of Australia is a comprehensive monograph based on John Cann's highly respected Australian Freshwater Turtles (1998). It reviews new information on the biology of Australian chelid turtles, presents recent perspectives and insights into their history and taxonomy, and provides an introduction to the freshwater turtles of New Guinea and Irian Jaya to Australia's north.