Photographic Guide to the Sea and Shore Life of Britain and North-west Europe

Photographic Guide to the Sea and Shore Life of Britain and North-west Europe PDF Author: Ray Gibson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198507093
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
This spectacular photographic guide to sea shore animals and plants represents a opletely new approach to field guides. It is aimed at those who wish to find and identify organisms encountered o the sea or immediately offshore quickly and easily while promoting their conservation. Uniquely, each species is illustrated by a photograph and, in most cases, accompanied by a line drawing that emphasizes the critical features for identification and a map to show the distribution of the species in North-West Europe. The text itself deliberately focuses on features that complement the photographs and facilitate identification non-destructively--where, for example, burrowing worms can only be identified by digging them up and therefore killing them, only the cast, the part usually seen, is shown. Stress is laid on the importance of exploiting all available information for locating and identifying each species--if two species have identical appearance they are described separately and behavioral, geographical, or seasonal features that distinguish them are described in the text. There is no other guide to seashore organisms like this one; those available are either less comprehensive or less well illustrated. It will appeal to beachcombers of all levels, from families to students and professionals, as well to divers and those visiting the proliferating numbers of commercially run marine aquaria that are open to the public.

Photographic Guide to the Sea and Shore Life of Britain and North-west Europe

Photographic Guide to the Sea and Shore Life of Britain and North-west Europe PDF Author: Ray Gibson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198507093
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Get Book

Book Description
This spectacular photographic guide to sea shore animals and plants represents a opletely new approach to field guides. It is aimed at those who wish to find and identify organisms encountered o the sea or immediately offshore quickly and easily while promoting their conservation. Uniquely, each species is illustrated by a photograph and, in most cases, accompanied by a line drawing that emphasizes the critical features for identification and a map to show the distribution of the species in North-West Europe. The text itself deliberately focuses on features that complement the photographs and facilitate identification non-destructively--where, for example, burrowing worms can only be identified by digging them up and therefore killing them, only the cast, the part usually seen, is shown. Stress is laid on the importance of exploiting all available information for locating and identifying each species--if two species have identical appearance they are described separately and behavioral, geographical, or seasonal features that distinguish them are described in the text. There is no other guide to seashore organisms like this one; those available are either less comprehensive or less well illustrated. It will appeal to beachcombers of all levels, from families to students and professionals, as well to divers and those visiting the proliferating numbers of commercially run marine aquaria that are open to the public.

A Student's Guide to the Seashore

A Student's Guide to the Seashore PDF Author: J. D. Fish
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139494511
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 573

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Book Description
This unique, concise and beautifully-illustrated guide allows students to identify over 650 of the common, widespread animals and seaweeds of the shore. User-friendly dichotomous keys are supported by details of diagnostic features and biology of each species. Now enhanced with 32 pages of colour, this much acclaimed guide is invaluable to students of marine biology at any level. Questions such as how does the species reproduce? What is its life-cycle? How does it feed? are answered in the notes accompanying each species to give a fascinating insight into the diversity and complexity of life on the shore. The text is supported by an extensive glossary of scientific terms and a comprehensive bibliography is included to aid further study. The third edition builds on the excellent reviews of earlier editions and will continue to appeal to a wide readership, including students, teachers and naturalists.

Life Between the Tides

Life Between the Tides PDF Author: Adam Nicolson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374721289
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Adam Nicolson explores the marine life inhabiting seashore rockpools with a scientist’s curiosity and a poet’s wonder in this beautifully illustrated book. The sea is not made of water. Creatures are its genes. Look down as you crouch over the shallows and you will find a periwinkle or a prawn, a claw-displaying crab or a cluster of anemones ready to meet you. No need for binoculars or special stalking skills: go to the rocks and the living will say hello. Inside each rock pool tucked into one of the infinite crevices of the tidal coastline lies a rippling, silent, unknowable universe. Below the stillness of the surface course different currents of endless motion—the ebb and flow of the tide, the steady forward propulsion of the passage of time, and the tiny lifetimes of the rock pool’s creatures, all of which coalesce into the grand narrative of evolution. In Life Between the Tides, Adam Nicolson investigates one of the most revelatory habitats on earth. Under his microscope, we see a prawn’s head become a medieval helmet and a group of “winkles” transform into a Dickensian social scene, with mollusks munching on Stilton and glancing at their pocket watches. Or, rather, is a winkle more like Achilles, an ancient hero, throwing himself toward death for the sake of glory? For Nicolson, who writes “with scientific rigor and a poet’s sense of wonder” (The American Scholar), the world of the rock pools is infinite and as intricate as our own. As Nicolson journeys between the tides, both in the pools he builds along the coast of Scotland and through the timeline of scientific discovery, he is accompanied by great thinkers—no one can escape the pull of the sea. We meet Virginia Woolf and her Waves; a young T. S. Eliot peering into his own rock pool in Massachusetts; even Nicolson’s father-in-law, a classical scholar who would hunt for amethysts along the shoreline, his mind on Heraclitus and the other philosophers of ancient Greece. And, of course, scientists populate the pages; not only their discoveries, but also their doubts and errors, their moments of quiet observation and their thrilling realizations. Everything is within the rock pools, where you can look beyond your own reflection and find the miraculous an inch beneath your nose. “The soul wants to be wet,” Heraclitus said in Ephesus twenty-five hundred years ago. This marvelous book demonstrates why it is so. Includes Color and Black-and-White Photographs

Britain

Britain PDF Author: Martin Walters
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198504337
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This is one of the first four in a new series of fabulously illustrated natural history travel guides, intended for the general reader with an interest in natural history, and for the growing numbers of 'ecotourists' who want to know where to see wildlife in the countries they visit. Thebooks are designed to complement each other and to build into a nature library, together giving an introduction to the natural history of Europe.Britain's compact scale belies the diversity of its landscapes - from sea-cliffs and rocky offshore islands, to the massifs of the Scottish Highlands, the low fenland of East Anglia, and the gentle wooded coombes of the south-west. This fabulously illustrated new travel guide describes hundreds ofplaces where these landscapes and their inhabitants can be seen at their best, all in easy reach of the discerning traveller.Essentially practical, the book first introduces the ecology, geology, and wildlife of Britain, then goes on to describe where to see its natural history at its best. There are descriptions of a selection of some 200 sites to visit, each carefully chosen to show a range of habitats and fascinatingwildlife. The entries are the personal choice of the authors and are based on intensive travel and research in the region. Described sites range in size from a few to thousands of hectares, be they National Parks, nature reserves, or simply common land, but all are open to the public and accessibleto the ordinary visitor. Four colour throughout, this book has stunning landscape photographs, line drawings and photographs of individual animals of plants and animals, colour region and site maps, and a splendid composite painting encapsulating typical habitats and their inhabitants.

Urban Ecosystem Services

Urban Ecosystem Services PDF Author: Alessio Russo
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3036505822
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
The school of thought surrounding the urban ecosystem has increasingly become in vogue among researchers worldwide. Since half of the world’s population lives in cities, urban ecosystem services have become essential to human health and wellbeing. Rapid urban growth has forced sustainable urban developers to rethink important steps by updating and, to some degree, recreating the human–ecosystem service linkage. Assessing, as well as estimating the losses of ecosystem services can denote the essential effects of urbanization and increasingly indicate where cities fall short. This book contains 13 thoroughly refereed contributions published within the Special Issue “Urban Ecosystem Services”. The book addresses topics such as nature-based solutions, green space planning, green infrastructure, rain gardens, climate change, and more. The contributions highlight new findings for landscape architects, urban planners, and policymakers. Important future cities research is considered by looking at the system connectivity between the social and ecological sphere—via varying forms of urban planning, management, and governance. The book is supported by methods and models that utilize an urban sustainability and ecosystem service-centric focus by adding knowledge-base and real-world solutions into the urbanization phenomenon.

Rocky Shores

Rocky Shores PDF Author: John Archer-Thomson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472943147
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Rocky Shores explores the species, communities and landscape of the narrow strip of land along our coastline. Limited in extent it may be, but no other habitat in Britain is as extreme and dynamic. As the tide ebbs and flows, physical and chemical conditions can alter dramatically in a matter of minutes, yet an impressive number of life forms have adapted and even thrive in these challenging conditions. Rock pools dotted across the shore contain unique pockets of diversity, while the strandline at the high-tide mark supports a curious community of microbes and invertebrates that in turn attract birds and mammals. John Archer-Thomson and Julian Cremona gently guide the reader through the patterns of marine biodiversity that might be encountered on sheltered and exposed shores: from the inhospitable 'splash zone' to the repeatedly submerged lower shore, and everything in between. In addition to the ecology, there is also much to be said about our cultural and historical links with the shore, and the authors also reflect on what the future may hold for this beautiful but vulnerable coastal ecosystem. Filled with stunning photographs of rocky shores and their extraordinary inhabitants, this book will appeal to anyone with a love of the shore – from the occasional 'rockpooler' through to enthusiastic naturalist.

Coastal Processes III

Coastal Processes III PDF Author: G. R. Rodriguez
Publisher: WIT Press
ISBN: 1845646983
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Containing papers presented at the Third International Conference on Physical Coastal Processes, Management and Engineering, this book examines coastal zone dynamics, which involve complex interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, and land. Management of coastal zones is dependent on a number of factors. Large temporal and spatial differences in air-sea exchange processes and wind strength and direction result from the complex interactions referred to above. Recreational and tourism activities make demands on coastal areas. With the number and frequency of extreme events due increases with climate change, their role in changing coastal zones also needs to be considered.The book considers also of these and covers such topics as: Wave modelling; Hydrodynamic modelling; Effects of climate change in coastal zones; Coastal defences; Energy recovery; Sediment transport and erosion; Pollution and water quality; Planning and beach design; Coastal morphology; Coastal processes and navigation; Coastal processes and GIS; Bio-physical coastal processes; Remote sensing; Systems approach; Coastal zone management; Impact and recovery from tsunamis; Impact of storms and extreme events; Ecosystems modelling; Coastal lagoons; Coastal oceanography; Socio-environmental issues.

The Timetree of Life

The Timetree of Life PDF Author: S. Blair Hedges
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019160898X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1237

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Book Description
The evolutionary history of life includes two primary components: phylogeny and timescale. Phylogeny refers to the branching order (relationships) of species or other taxa within a group and is crucial for understanding the inheritance of traits and for erecting classifications. However, a timescale is equally important because it provides a way to compare phylogeny directly with the evolution of other organisms and with planetary history such as geology, climate, extraterrestrialimpacts, and other features.The Timetree of Life is the first reference book to synthesize the wealth of information relating to the temporal component of phylogenetic trees. In the past, biologists have relied exclusively upon the fossil record to infer an evolutionary timescale. However, recent revolutionary advances in molecular biology have made it possible to not only estimate the relationships of many groups of organisms, but also to estimate their times of divergence with molecular clocks. The routineestimation and utilization of these so-called 'time-trees' could add exciting new dimensions to biology including enhanced opportunities to integrate large molecular data sets with fossil and biogeographic evidence (and thereby foster greater communication between molecular and traditional systematists). Theycould help estimate not only ancestral character states but also evolutionary rates in numerous categories of organismal phenotype; establish more reliable associations between causal historical processes and biological outcomes; develop a universally standardized scheme for biological classifications; and generally promote novel avenues of thought in many arenas of comparative evolutionary biology.This authoritative reference work brings together, for the first time, experts on all major groups of organisms to assemble a timetree of life. The result is a comprehensive resource on evolutionary history which will be an indispensable reference for scientists, educators, and students in the life sciences, earth sciences, and molecular biology. For each major group of organism, a representative is illustrated and a timetree of families and higher taxonomic groups is shown. Basic aspects ofthe evolutionary history of the group, the fossil record, and competing hypotheses of relationships are discussed. Details of the divergence times are presented for each node in the timetree, and primary literature references are included. The book is complemented by an online database(www.timetree.net) which allows researchers to both deposit and retrieve data.

Ragnarok

Ragnarok PDF Author: A.S. Byatt
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802194877
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 93

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Book Description
The Booker Prize–winning author of Possession breathes life into the Ragnorak myth through the novel of a young British girl during World War II. Ragnarok retells the finale of Norse mythology: a story of the destruction of life on this planet and the end of the gods themselves. What more relevant myth could any modern writer choose? As the bombs of the Blitz rain down on Britain, one young girl is evacuated to the countryside. She is struggling to make sense of her new wartime life. Then she is given a copy of Asgard and the Gods—a book of ancient Norse myths—and her inner and outer worlds are transformed. War, natural disaster, reckless gods, and the recognition of impermanence in the world are just some of the threads that A.S. Byatt weaves into this most timely of books. Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, this is a landmark. A Globe and Mail (Toronto) Best Book “A gorgeous, brilliant, and significant performance.” —Booklist, starred review “Byatt’s prose is majestic, the lush descriptive passages—jewelled one minute, gory the next—a pleasure to get lost in.” —The Telegraph

 PDF Author:
Publisher: Penguin Books India
ISBN: 0670085847
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description