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 Here

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 : History
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.

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.

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.

Megaherbivores

Megaherbivores PDF Author: R. Norman Owen-Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521426374
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
An account of the limitations and advantages conferred by large body size.

Macroecology

Macroecology PDF Author: James H. Brown
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226076156
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
In Macroecology, James H. Brown proposes a radical new research agenda designed to broaden the scope of ecology to encompass vast geographical areas and very long time spans. While much ecological research is narrowly focused and experimental, providing detailed information that cannot be used to generalize from one ecological community or time period to another, macroecology draws on data from many disciplines to create a less detailed but much broader picture with greater potential for generalization. Integrating data from ecology, systematics, evolutionary biology, paleobiology, and biogeography to investigate problems that could only be addressed on a much smaller scale by traditional approaches, macroecology provides a richer, more complete understanding of how patterns of life have moved across the earth over time. Brown also demonstrates the advantages of macroecology for conservation, showing how it allows scientists to look beyond endangered species and ecological communities to consider the long history and large geographic scale of human impacts. An important reassessment of the direction of ecology by one of the most influential thinkers in the field, this work will shape future research in ecology and other disciplines. "This approach may well mark a major new turn in the road in the history of ecology, and I find it extremely exciting. The scope of Macroecology is tremendous and the book makes use of its author's exceptionally broad experience and knowledge. An excellent and important book."—Lawrence R. Heaney, Center for Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, the Field Museum

Our Ecological Footprint

Our Ecological Footprint PDF Author: Mathis Wackernagel
Publisher: New Society Publishers
ISBN: 086571312X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Our Ecological Footprint presents an internationally-acclaimed tool for measuring and visualizing the resources required to sustain our households, communities, regions and nations, converting the seemingly complex concepts of carrying capacity, resource-use, waste-disposal and the like into a graphic form that everyone can grasp and use. An excellent handbook for community activists, planners, teachers, students and policy makers.

Reproductive Seasonality in Teleosts

Reproductive Seasonality in Teleosts PDF Author: Angus D. Munro
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9780849368752
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
This important publication provides, for the first time, a comprehensive review of knowledge of reproductive seasonality in teleosts. It addresses why a particular species should show such seasonality, and how environmental cues act as regulators to ensure that reproductive maturation and breeding occur at the optimum time. The book considers the ultimate factors responsible for the evolution of reproductive seasonality in fish. It reviews salient concepts of reproductive seasonality in mammals. This volume also includes a review of accumulated knowledge of the control mechanisms of salmonids, gasterosteids, temperate cyprinids, cyprinodonts and other brackish-water forms, and marine and tropical freshwater teleosts. This is a work of value to research scientists in the field of environmental physiology, reproductive biology, and comparative neuroendocrinology and endocrinology. In addition, it is relevant for institutions involved with aquaculture and fisheries management. It is useful for post-graduate as well as undergraduate courses in fish biology and various related subjects.

The Environmental Implications of Population Dynamics

The Environmental Implications of Population Dynamics PDF Author: Lori M. Hunter
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 9780833043689
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
This report discusses the relationship between population and environmental change, the forces that mediate this relationship, and how population dynamics specifically affect climate change and land-use change.

Abrupt Climate Change

Abrupt Climate Change PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309133041
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
The climate record for the past 100,000 years clearly indicates that the climate system has undergone periodic-and often extreme-shifts, sometimes in as little as a decade or less. The causes of abrupt climate changes have not been clearly established, but the triggering of events is likely to be the result of multiple natural processes. Abrupt climate changes of the magnitude seen in the past would have far-reaching implications for human society and ecosystems, including major impacts on energy consumption and water supply demands. Could such a change happen again? Are human activities exacerbating the likelihood of abrupt climate change? What are the potential societal consequences of such a change? Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises looks at the current scientific evidence and theoretical understanding to describe what is currently known about abrupt climate change, including patterns and magnitudes, mechanisms, and probability of occurrence. It identifies critical knowledge gaps concerning the potential for future abrupt changes, including those aspects of change most important to society and economies, and outlines a research strategy to close those gaps. Based on the best and most current research available, this book surveys the history of climate change and makes a series of specific recommendations for the future.