Foundations of Macroecology

Foundations of Macroecology PDF Author: Felisa A. Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022611550X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 817

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Book Description
Macroecology is an approach to science that emphasizes the description and explanation of patterns and processes at large spatial and temporal scales. Some scientists liken it to seeing the forest through the trees, giving the proverbial phrase an ecological twist. The term itself was first introduced to the modern literature by James H. Brown and Brian A. Maurer in a 1989 paper, and it is Brown’s classic 1995 study, Macroecology, that is credited with inspiring the broad-scale subfield of ecology. But as with all subfields, many modern-day elements of macroecology are implicit in earlier works dating back decades, even centuries. Foundations of Macroecology charts the evolutionary trajectory of these concepts—from the species-area relationship and the latitudinal gradient of species richness to the relationship between body size and metabolic rate—through forty-six landmark papers originally published between 1920 and 1998. Divided into two parts—“Macroecology before Macroecology” and “Dimensions of Macroecology”—the collection also takes the long view, with each paper accompanied by an original commentary from a contemporary expert in the field that places it in a broader context and explains its foundational role. Providing a solid, coherent assessment of the history, current state, and potential future of the field, Foundations of Macroecology will be an essential text for students and teachers of ecology alike.

Foundations of Macroecology

Foundations of Macroecology PDF Author: Felisa A. Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022611550X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 817

Get Book Here

Book Description
Macroecology is an approach to science that emphasizes the description and explanation of patterns and processes at large spatial and temporal scales. Some scientists liken it to seeing the forest through the trees, giving the proverbial phrase an ecological twist. The term itself was first introduced to the modern literature by James H. Brown and Brian A. Maurer in a 1989 paper, and it is Brown’s classic 1995 study, Macroecology, that is credited with inspiring the broad-scale subfield of ecology. But as with all subfields, many modern-day elements of macroecology are implicit in earlier works dating back decades, even centuries. Foundations of Macroecology charts the evolutionary trajectory of these concepts—from the species-area relationship and the latitudinal gradient of species richness to the relationship between body size and metabolic rate—through forty-six landmark papers originally published between 1920 and 1998. Divided into two parts—“Macroecology before Macroecology” and “Dimensions of Macroecology”—the collection also takes the long view, with each paper accompanied by an original commentary from a contemporary expert in the field that places it in a broader context and explains its foundational role. Providing a solid, coherent assessment of the history, current state, and potential future of the field, Foundations of Macroecology will be an essential text for students and teachers of ecology alike.

Foundations of Macroecology

Foundations of Macroecology PDF Author: Felisa A. Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022611547X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 817

Get Book Here

Book Description
Macroecology is an approach to science that emphasizes description and explanation of patterns and processes at large spatial and temporal scales. Some liken it to seeing the forest through the trees, an apt ecological use of the proverbial phrase. The term itself was introduced to modern literature by our authors James Brown and Brian Maurer, in a seminal science paper in 1989. We then published books by both of these authors, including Brown s Macroecology in 1995, which quickly traveled to the shelf of classics in ecology, credited with cohering and inspiring a subfield of ecology proper.While macroecology is to many a modern subfield, the large-scale perspective it advocates is implicit in earlier publications. For example, in 1898 de Liocourt studied the influence of management practices on the structure of French fir forests, and characterized the distribution of tree size in three different stands. His findings that in natural areas the number of trees declined exponentially with increasing diameter of the trunk allowed him to draw conclusions about the influence of management practices on tree distribution patterns. Similarly, other classic macroecological patterns including the species-area relationship, latitudinal gradient of species richness, relationship between body size and metabolic rate, species-abundance distribution, and species-body size distribution were identified decades, sometimes even centuries ago. Consequently, despite the scant twenty years that has elapsed since the term was coined, macroecology has a deep and rich history."Foundations of Macroecology" traces and coheres that history, charting an evolutionary trajectory to the rigorous macroecological research landscape science enjoys today. The forty-six papers span eight decades, from 1920 to 1998, and include divergent perspectives of space, time, and taxonomic and habitat affiliation. They are organized into two main parts: Macroecology before Macroecology and Dimensions of Macroecology. The latter is further subdivided into six sections reflecting the subject matter: Allometry and Body Size, Evolutionary Dynamics, Abundance and Distributions, Species Diversity, and Methodological Advances. For each reprinted paper, a macroecologist specializing in that area has written original commentary that places the paper in a broader context and explains why it is foundational. "

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

Foundations of Restoration Ecology

Foundations of Restoration Ecology PDF Author: Society for Ecological Restoration International
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610916972
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
"Society for Ecological Restoration"--Cover.

Origins of Biodiversity

Origins of Biodiversity PDF Author: Lindell Bromham
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199608717
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
Origins of Biodiversity is a unique introduction to the fields of macroevolution and macroecology, which explores the evolution and distribution of biodiversity across time, space and lineages. Using an enquiry-led framework to encourage active learning and critical thinking, each chapter is based around a case-study to explore concepts and research methods from contemporary macroevolution and macroecology. The book focuses on the process of science as much as the biology itself, to help students acquire the research skills and intellectual tools they need to understand and investigate the biological world around them. In particular, the emphasis on hypothesis testing encourages students to develop and test their own ideas. This text builds upon the foundations offered in most general introductory evolutionary biology courses to introduce an exciting range of ideas and research tools for investigating patterns of biodiversity.

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.

Complex Ecology

Complex Ecology PDF Author: Charles G. Curtin
Publisher:
ISBN: 1108416071
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 595

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Book Description
Research papers from the end of twentieth-century have been assembled, alongside expert commentary, for the first collected volume on complexity-based ecology.

The Adversary First Amendment

The Adversary First Amendment PDF Author: Martin H. Redish
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804786348
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
The Adversary First Amendment presents a unique and controversial rethinking of modern American democratic theory and free speech. Most free speech scholars understand the First Amendment as a vehicle for or protection of democracy itself, relying upon cooperative or collectivist theories of democracy. Martin Redish reconsiders free speech in the context of adversary democracy, arguing that individuals should have the opportunity to affect the outcomes of collective decision-making according to their own values and interests. Adversary democracy recognizes the inevitability of conflict within a democratic society, as well as the need for regulation of that conflict to prevent the onset of tyranny. In doing so, it embraces pluralism, diversity, and the individual growth and development deriving from the promotion of individual interests. Drawing on previous free speech scholarship and case studies of controversial speech, Redish advances a theory of free expression grounded in democratic notions of self-promotion and controlled adversary conflict, making a strong case for its application across such areas as commercial speech, campaign spending, and anonymous speech.

Marine Macroecology

Marine Macroecology PDF Author: Jon D. Witman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226904148
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Pioneered in the late 1980s, the concept of macroecology—a framework for studying ecological communities with a focus on patterns and processes—revolutionized the field. Although this approach has been applied mainly to terrestrial ecosystems, there is increasing interest in quantifying macroecological patterns in the sea and understanding the processes that generate them. Taking stock of the current work in the field and advocating a research agenda for the decades ahead, Marine Macroecology draws together insights and approaches from a diverse group of scientists to show how marine ecology can benefit from the adoption of macroecological approaches. Divided into three parts, Marine Macroecology first provides an overview of marine diversity patterns and offers case studies of specific habitats and taxonomic groups. In the second part, contributors focus on process-based explanations for marine ecological patterns. The third part presents new approaches to understanding processes driving the macroecolgical patterns in the sea. Uniting unique insights from different perspectives with the common goal of identifying and understanding large-scale biodiversity patterns, Marine Macroecology will inspire the next wave of marine ecologists to approach their research from a macroecological perspective.

Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions (MPB-49)

Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions (MPB-49) PDF Author: A. Townsend Peterson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691136882
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Terminology, conceptual overview, biogeography, modeling.