The Ecological Implications of Body Size

The Ecological Implications of Body Size PDF Author: Robert Henry Peters
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521288866
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Describes in detail how the physical size of an organism affects its biology. Presents the largest single compilation of inter-specific size relations and instructs the reader on their comparison, combination, and criticism.

The Ecological Implications of Body Size

The Ecological Implications of Body Size PDF Author: Robert Henry Peters
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521288866
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book

Book Description
Describes in detail how the physical size of an organism affects its biology. Presents the largest single compilation of inter-specific size relations and instructs the reader on their comparison, combination, and criticism.

Human Body Size and the Laws of Scaling

Human Body Size and the Laws of Scaling PDF Author: Thomas T. Samaras
Publisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781600214080
Category : Biometry
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
Several books have been published on scaling in biology and its ramifications in the animal kingdom. However, none has specifically examined the multifaceted effects of how changes in human height create disproportionately larger changes in weight, surface area, strength and other physiological parameters. Yet, the impact of these non-linear effects on individual humans as well as our world's environment is enormous. Since increasing human body size has widespread ramifications, this book presents findings on the human species and its ecological niche. its community and how the species interacts with its environment. Thus, a few chapters provide an ecological overview of how increasing human body size relates to human evolution, fitness, health, survival and the environment. This book provides a unique purview of the laws of scaling on human performance, health, longevity and the environment. Numerous examples from various research disciplines are used to illustrate the impact of increasing body size on many aspects of human enterprises, including work output, athletics and intellectual performance.

Body Size: The Structure and Function of Aquatic Ecosystems

Body Size: The Structure and Function of Aquatic Ecosystems PDF Author: Alan G. Hildrew
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139464175
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Ecologists have long struggled to predict features of ecological systems, such as the numbers and diversity of organisms. The wide range of body sizes in ecological communities, from tiny microbes to large animals and plants, is emerging as the key to prediction. Based on the relationship between body size and features such as biological rates, the physics of water and the amount of habitat available, we may be able to understand patterns of abundance and diversity, biogeography, interactions in food webs and the impact of fishing, adding up to a potential 'periodic table' for ecology. Remarkable progress on the unravelling, describing and modelling of aquatic food webs, revealing the fundamental role of body size, makes a book emphasising marine and freshwater ecosystems particularly apt. In this 2007 book, the importance of body size is examined at a range of scales that will be of interest to professional ecologists, from students to senior researchers.

Body Size in Mammalian Paleobiology

Body Size in Mammalian Paleobiology PDF Author: John Douglas Damuth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521360999
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
There is a growing interest in the biological implications of body size in animals. This parameter is now being used to make inferences and predictions about not only the habits and habitat of a particular species, but also as a way to understand patterns and biases in the fossil record. This valuable collection of essays presents and evaluates techniques of body-mass estimation and reviews current and potential applications of body-size estimates in paleobiology. Coverage is particularly detailed for carnivores, primates and ungulates, but information is also presented on marsupials, rodents and proboscideans. Body Size in Mammalian Paleobiology will prove useful to researchers and graduate students in paleontology, mammalogy, ecology and evolution programmes. It is designed to be both a practical handbook for researchers making and using body-size estimates, and a sourcebook of ideas for applying body size to paleontological problems and directions for future research.

The Role of Body Size in Multispecies Systems

The Role of Body Size in Multispecies Systems PDF Author: Andrea Belgrano
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0123864755
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
This thematic volume represents an important and exciting benchmark in the study of integrative ecology, synthesizing and showcasing current research and highlighting future directions for the development of the field.

The Impact of Environmental Variability on Ecological Systems

The Impact of Environmental Variability on Ecological Systems PDF Author: D.A. Vasseur
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402058519
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Fluctuations in the environmental conditions impacting life are ubiquitous. This book brings together contributions to provide readers with a comprehensive look at the challenges for ecological systems and ecological research alike. It offers a comprehensive range of topics, from environmental variability itself to its ecosystem-level impact.

Animal Body Size

Animal Body Size PDF Author: Felisa A. Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601228X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Galileo wrote that “nature cannot produce a horse as large as twenty ordinary horses or a giant ten times taller than an ordinary man unless by miracle or by greatly altering the proportions of his limbs and especially of his bones”—a statement that wonderfully captures a long-standing scientific fascination with body size. Why are organisms the size that they are? And what determines their optimum size? This volume explores animal body size from a macroecological perspective, examining species, populations, and other large groups of animals in order to uncover the patterns and causal mechanisms of body size throughout time and across the globe. The chapters represent diverse scientific perspectives and are divided into two sections. The first includes chapters on insects, snails, birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals and discusses the body size patterns of these various organisms. The second examines some of the factors behind, and consequences of, body size patterns and includes chapters on community assembly, body mass distribution, life history, and the influence of flight on body size.

Advances in Ecological Research

Advances in Ecological Research PDF Author:
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 9780080567129
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This volume contains papers highlighting the diverse interests of modern ecologists. Areas covered range from modeling terrestrial carbon exchange and storage to the relationship between animal abundance and body size. Other papers address the free-air carbon dioxide enrichment in global change research; generalist predators, interaction strength, and food web stability; delays, demography, and cycles; and spatial root segregation. This volume is essential for all ecologists.

The Macroecological Perspective

The Macroecological Perspective PDF Author: José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031446119
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
This comprehensive volume discusses the patterns and processes analyzed in macroecology with a distinct look at the theoretical and methodological issues underlying the discipline as well as deeper epistemological matters. The book serves as a synthesis of macroecological literature that has been published since Brown and Maurer proposed and defined the term “macroecology” in 1989. Author José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho draws from the different disciplines and branches (ecology, evolutionary biology, physiology, behavioral sciences, climatology, and paleontology) that make up macroecology to present a full, holistic picture of where the discipline stands. Through ten chapters, Diniz-Filho moves from a discussion of what macroecology actually is to macroecological modeling to the more applied side of the discipline, covering topics such as richness and diversity patterns and patterns in body size. The book concludes with a synthesis of how macroecological research is done in a theoretical and operational sense as well as unifying explanations for each of the macroecological patterns discussed, moving on to evaluate which theories and models are still useful and which ones can be abandoned. The book is intended for academics, young researchers and students interested in macroecology and conservation biogeography. In addition, because of the integrative nature of macroecology and the theoretical and methodological background in the book, it can be of interest to researchers working in related fields including but not limited to ecology and evolutionary biology.

Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences

Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences PDF Author: British Ecological Society. Symposium
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521549325
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences brings together for the first time major researchers in the field to present overviews of current thinking about the form and determinants of macroecological patterns. Each section presents different viewpoints on the answer to a key question in macroecology, such as why are most species rare, why are most species small-bodied, and why are most species restricted in their distribution?