Size, Function, and Life History

Size, Function, and Life History PDF Author: William A. Calder
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 9780486691916
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Get Book Here

Book Description
Zoologist provides a quantitative baseline for comparative zoology and demonstrates the value of allometric correlations as an analytical tool. New Introduction. References.

Size, Function, and Life History

Size, Function, and Life History PDF Author: William A. Calder
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 9780486691916
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Get Book Here

Book Description
Zoologist provides a quantitative baseline for comparative zoology and demonstrates the value of allometric correlations as an analytical tool. New Introduction. References.

Animal Body Size

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

Get Book Here

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 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

Get Book Here

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.

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

Get Book Here

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.

Size-Structured Populations

Size-Structured Populations PDF Author: Bo Ebenman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642740014
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
At last both ecology and evolution are covered in this study on the dynamics of size-structured populations. How does natural selection shape growth patterns and life cycles of individuals, and hence the size-structure of populations? This book will stimulate biologists to look into some important and interesting biological problems from a new angle of approach, concerning: - life history evolution, - intraspecific competition and niche theory, - structure and dynamics of ecological communities.

Avian Growth and Development

Avian Growth and Development PDF Author: J. Matthias Starck
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195106084
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 462

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is the first re-appraisal in 50 years of concepts of development made in birds. This book is a case study in evolutionary diversification of life histories. Although birds have a rather uniform body plan and physiology, they exhibit marked variation in development type, parental care, and rate of growth. Altricial birds are fully dependent on their parents for warmth and nutrition and begin posthatching life in a more or less embryonic condition. At the other extreme, such superprecocial species as the megapodes are independent of all parental care from hatching, and the neonate, able to fly, resembles an adult bird. This book thus attempts to present an integrative perspective of organism biology, ecology, and evolution.

Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology

Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology PDF Author:
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128004266
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2138

Get Book Here

Book Description
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology, Four Volume Set is the definitive go-to reference in the field of evolutionary biology. It provides a fully comprehensive review of the field in an easy to search structure. Under the collective leadership of fifteen distinguished section editors, it is comprised of articles written by leading experts in the field, providing a full review of the current status of each topic. The articles are up-to-date and fully illustrated with in-text references that allow readers to easily access primary literature. While all entries are authoritative and valuable to those with advanced understanding of evolutionary biology, they are also intended to be accessible to both advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Broad topics include the history of evolutionary biology, population genetics, quantitative genetics; speciation, life history evolution, evolution of sex and mating systems, evolutionary biogeography, evolutionary developmental biology, molecular and genome evolution, coevolution, phylogenetic methods, microbial evolution, diversification of plants and fungi, diversification of animals, and applied evolution. Presents fully comprehensive content, allowing easy access to fundamental information and links to primary research Contains concise articles by leading experts in the field that ensures current coverage of each topic Provides ancillary learning tools like tables, illustrations, and multimedia features to assist with the comprehension process

Metabolic Ecology

Metabolic Ecology PDF Author: Richard M. Sibly
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470671521
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Get Book Here

Book Description
Metabolic Ecology Most of ecology is about metabolism, the ways that organisms use energy and materials. The energy requirements of individuals (their metabolic rates) vary predictably with their body size and temperature. Ecological interactions are exchanges of energy and materials between organisms and their environments. Therefore, metabolic rate affects ecological processes at all levels: individuals, populations, communities and ecosystems. Each chapter focuses on a different process, level of organization, or kind of organism. It lays a conceptual foundation and presents empirical examples. Together, the chapters provide an integrated framework that holds the promise for a unified theory of ecology. The book is intended to be accessible to upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, but also of interest to senior scientists. Its easy-to-read chapters and clear illustrations can be used in lecture and seminar courses. This is an authoritative treatment that will inspire future generations to study metabolic ecology.

Functions, Data and Models

Functions, Data and Models PDF Author: Sheldon P. Gordon
Publisher: MAA
ISBN: 0883857677
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 511

Get Book Here

Book Description
Focuses primarily on mathematical concepts and mathematical thinking, thereby achieving a balance among geometric, numerical, symbolic, and statistical approaches, rather than focusing on algebraic manipulation. Gordon incorporates a significant amount of statistical reasoning and methods as natural applications of more standard college algebra topics. --From publisher description.

Advances in Ecological Research

Advances in Ecological Research PDF Author:
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0080567096
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Get Book Here

Book Description
Concerns about the increasing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and the resulting global effects have received high visibility in the general media as well as scientific journals. These concerns have been translatedinto several projects from the international scientific community-projects aimed to better understand the processes of climate and how these changes impact the ecosystem.The lively selection of articles in this issue of Advances in Ecological Research cover a wide spectrum of ecology and provide something of interest to all ecologists. Topics include temperature and organism size, carbon allocation in trees, and the role of morphological plasticity in resource acquisition.