Elements of Ecology

Description

New and updated features of this title

• Human Ecology discussions are integrated throughout each chapter in an “Ecological Issues and Applications” section. This material (previously found in Chapters 28, and 29) has been streamlined and is now presented with basic ecology concepts to emphasize the relevance of ecology to understanding and addressing environmental concerns. Each section is followed by a set of critical thinking questions.
• Global Climate Change (Chapter 27) has been completely updated and incorporates current data and examples.
• Streamlined discussions on metapopulations provide a more accessible introduction to these topics by moving this material from a separate (Ch.12) to the chapters on population structure (Ch. 8) and landscape ecology (Ch. 20),
• A dramatically revised art program features more than 200 redesigned, full-color illustrations, graphs and tables.
• Field Studies discuss ecological research performed by young up-and-coming scientists, and challenge students to interpret the results of the featured research.

Brief Contents

1. The Nature of Ecology
2. Climate
3. The Aquatic Environment
4. The Terrestrial Environment
5. Adaptation and Natural Selection
6. Plant Adaptations to the Environment
7. Animal Adaptations to the Environment
8. Properties of Populations
9. Population Growth
10. Life History
11. Intraspecific Population Regulation
12. Species Interactions, Population Dynamics, and Natural Selection
13. Interspecific Competition
14. Predation
15. Parasitism and Mutualism
16. Community Structure
17. Factors Influencing the Structure of Communities
18. Community Dynamics
19. Landscape Dynamics
20. Ecosystem Energetics
21. Decomposition and Nutrient Cycling
22. Biogeochemical Cycles
23. Terrestrial Ecosystems
24. Aquatic Ecosystems
25. Coastal and Wetland Ecosystems
26. Large-Scale Patterns of Biological Diversity
27. Global Climate Change

Thomas M. Smith, Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, received his Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Tennessee in 1982. The main focus of his research over the past two decades has been to develop an individual based theory of community and ecosystems dynamics. As part of this work he has served on numerous national and international panels that have addressed the potential influence of human activities on the global environment. He has authored over 70 publications based on his research, and he has been recognized as one of the most cited scientists in the field of global change research.

Thomas’s work has taken him to over 70 countries and 6 continents. He has served on the faculty of the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), Australian National University (Canberra, Australia), as well as the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA, USA). In addition, he has held research scientist positions at both Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, TN, USA) and the Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Laxenburg, Austria). His has over 20 years of experience teaching the science of ecology to both science and non-science majors.

Robert L. Smith holds a Ph.D. in Wildlife Biology from Cornell University. He is Professor Emeritus of Ecology at West Virginia University. He has spent over 30 years teaching Ecology and conducting field research throughout the world.

His teaching responsibilities have involved mostly undergraduate courses in general ecology and graduate courses in population ecology and wildlife management. His research has included forest-fire related problems in southern West Virginia, vegetational development and succession on abandoned and reclaimed surface mines, the relation between forest vegetational structure and the forest bird community, and forest habitat assessment and habitat evaluation procedures based on vegetational structure.

Smith has served as a consultant to congressional committees, workshops on environmental education and energy and environmental problems, the National Landmarks program of the U.S. Department of Interior, National Research Council Task Forces on wildlife and fisheries issues and ecological classification systems for implementing environmental quality evaluation procedures.

Hallmark features of this title

• Interpreting Ecological Data figure questions challenge students to pull information from graphs and data tables and to consider different outcomes.
• Quantifying Ecology boxes appear in every chapter and delve into selected topics to explain the related interpretation of ecological data, quantitative methods, and mathematical models.
• Further Readings emphasize how the text is based on real scientific studies and include annotations to explain their relevance.