Toward a Unified Ecology

Toward a Unified Ecology PDF Author: Timothy F. H. Allen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538464
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
The first edition of Toward a Unified Ecology was ahead of its time. For the second edition, the authors present a new synthesis of their core ideas on evaluating communities, organisms, populations, biomes, models, and management. The book now places greater emphasis on post-normal critiques, cognizant of ever-present observer values in the system. The problem it addresses is how to work holistically on complex things that cannot be defined, and this book continues to build an approach to the problem of scaling in ecosystems. Provoked by complexity theory, the authors add a whole new chapter on the central role of narrative in science and how models improve them. The book takes data and modeling seriously, with a sophisticated philosophy of science.

Toward a Unified Ecology

Toward a Unified Ecology PDF Author: Timothy F. H. Allen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538464
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 505

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first edition of Toward a Unified Ecology was ahead of its time. For the second edition, the authors present a new synthesis of their core ideas on evaluating communities, organisms, populations, biomes, models, and management. The book now places greater emphasis on post-normal critiques, cognizant of ever-present observer values in the system. The problem it addresses is how to work holistically on complex things that cannot be defined, and this book continues to build an approach to the problem of scaling in ecosystems. Provoked by complexity theory, the authors add a whole new chapter on the central role of narrative in science and how models improve them. The book takes data and modeling seriously, with a sophisticated philosophy of science.

Toward a Unified Environmental Studies

Toward a Unified Environmental Studies PDF Author: Benjamin Harrison Sherman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description


Toward a Unified Ecology

Toward a Unified Ecology PDF Author: T. F. H. Allen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231069182
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Two key demands are being made of ecology: that the discipline increasingly be a predictive one; and that ecologists be prepared to consider large-scale systems. These systems become simple or complex based on the level and type of explanation required, and a strict and consistent epistemology is needed in light of new insights into the nature of complexity. T. F. H. Allen and Thomas W. Hoekstra argue that complex systems analysis requires ecologists to distinguish models and to recognize that models must invoke a scale and point of view. Toward a Unified Ecology offers a strategy to attain a unity that brings basic ecology to bear on ecological management. Beginning with hierarchy theory as a basic premise, the book goes on to explain that the conventional "levels"--ecosystems, landscapes, communities, populations, organisms--are not levels in themselves but criteria for observation. The authors assert that the essential character of ecology's subdisciplines is scale-dependent. Putting scale back into systems of well-defined type captures the richness of the connections in the material ecological system. Allen and Hoekstra present a conceptual framework for a more coherent view of ecology, showing how to link the various parts of ecology into a natural whole.

Evolution As Entropy

Evolution As Entropy PDF Author: Daniel R. Brooks
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226075747
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
This second edition in just two years offers a considerably revised second chapter, in which information behavior replaces analogies to purely physical systems, as well as practical applications of the authors' theory. Attention is also given to a hierarchical theory of ecosystem behavior, taking note of constraints on local ecosystem members resul.

Supply-Side Sustainability

Supply-Side Sustainability PDF Author: Timothy F. H. Allen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231504071
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
While environmentalists insist that lower rates of consumption of natural resources are essential for a sustainable future, many economists dismiss the notion that resource limits act to constrain modern, creative societies. The conflict between these views tinges political debate at all levels and hinders our ability to plan for the future. Supply-Side Sustainability offers a fresh approach to this dilemma by integrating ecological and social science approaches in an interdisciplinary treatment of sustainability. Written by two ecologists and an anthropologist, this book discusses organisms, landscapes, populations, communities, biomes, the biosphere, ecosystems and energy flows, as well as patterns of sustainability and collapse in human societies, from hunter-gatherer groups to empires to today's industrial world. These diverse topics are integrated within a new framework that translates the authors' advances in hierarchy and complexity theory into a form useful to professionals in science, government, and business. The result is a much-needed blueprint for a cost-effective management regime, one that makes problem-solving efforts themselves sustainable over time. The authors demonstrate that long-term, cost-effective resource management can be achieved by managing the contexts of productive systems, rather than by managing the commodities that natural systems produce.

Population Ecology

Population Ecology PDF Author: Michael Begon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444313754
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Worldwide, Population Ecology is the leading textbook on this titled subject. Written primarily for students, it describes the present state of population ecology in terms that can be readily understood by undergraduates with little or no background in the subject. Carefully chosen experimental examples illustrate each topic, and studies of plants and animals are combined to show how fundamental principles can be derived that apply to both species. Use of complex mathematics ia avoided throughout the book, and what math is necessary is dealt with by examination of real experimental data rather than dull theory. The latest edition of this leading textbook. Adopted as an Open University set text.

Ecology - Volume I

Ecology - Volume I PDF Author: Antonio Bodini
Publisher: EOLSS Publications
ISBN: 1848262906
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
Ecology is a component of Encyclopedia of Environmental and Ecological Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Ecology is the study of the interrelationships between living organisms and their environment. The term "ecology" was introduced by Ernst Haeckel, at the end of the nineteenth century. Since that time spectacular advances have been made. Much has been learned about the relationship between organisms and environmental factors, and about the processes that regulate the abundance and distribution of species. The Theme on Ecology with contributions from distinguished experts in the field discusses the Science of Ecology for a Sustainable World. The two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.

A Guidebook for Integrated Ecological Assessments

A Guidebook for Integrated Ecological Assessments PDF Author: Mark E. Jensen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441986200
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
A rich set of protocols for the process of assessing the ecological make-up of the land so as to guide environmental decision-making.

Toward Unity among Environmentalists

Toward Unity among Environmentalists PDF Author: Bryan G. Norton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195357523
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Today, six out of ten Americans describe themselves as "active" environmentalists or as "sympathetic" to the movement's concerns. The movement, in turn, reflects this millions-strong support in its diversity, encompassing a wide spectrum of causes, groups, and sometimes conflicting special interests. For far-sighted activists and policy makers, the question is how this diversity affects the ability to achieve key goals in the battle against pollution, erosion, and out-of-control growth. This insightful book offers an overview of the movement -- its past as well as its present -- and issues the most persuasive call yet for a unified approach to solving environmental problems. Focusing on examples from resource use, pollution control, protection of species and habitats, and land use, the author shows how the dynamics of diversity have actually hindered environmentalists in the past, but also how a convergence of these interests around forward-looking policies can be effected, despite variance in value systems espoused. The book is thus not only an assessment of today's movement, but a blueprint for action that can help pull together many different concerns under a common banner. Anyone interested in environmental issues and active approaches to their solution will find the author's observations both astute and creative.

Grounding Urban Natures

Grounding Urban Natures PDF Author: Henrik Ernstson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262353172
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
Case studies from cities on five continents demonstrate the advantages of thinking comparatively about urban environments. The global discourse around urban ecology tends to homogenize and universalize, relying on such terms as “smart cities,” “eco-cities,” and “resilience,” and proposing a “science of cities” based largely on information from the Global North. Grounding Urban Natures makes the case for the importance of place and time in understanding urban environments. Rather than imposing a unified framework on the ecology of cities, the contributors use a variety of approaches across a range of of locales and timespans to examine how urban natures are part of—and are shaped by—cities and urbanization. Grounding Urban Natures offers case studies from cities on five continents that demonstrate the advantages of thinking comparatively about urban environments. The contributors consider the diversity of urban natures, analyzing urban ecologies that range from the coastal delta of New Orleans to real estate practices of the urban poor in Lagos. They examine the effect of popular movements on the meanings of urban nature in cities including San Francisco, Delhi, and Berlin. Finally, they explore abstract urban planning models and their global mobility, examining real-world applications in such cities as Cape Town, Baltimore, and the Chinese “eco-city” Yixing. Contributors Martín Ávila, Amita Baviskar, Jia-Ching Chen, Henrik Ernstson, James Evans, Lisa M. Hoffman, Jens Lachmund, Joshua Lewis, Lindsay Sawyer, Sverker Sörlin, Anne Whiston Spirn, Lance van Sittert, Richard A. Walker