One of the key challenges facing ecologists is to understand and predict the effect of human-induced changes such as pollution or long-term climate change. This book provides the ecological background
Deserts provide a seemingly hostile environment in which plants can, nevertheless, survive and grow. This book, originally published in 1992, considers the ecological strategies adopted by desert succulents to overcome these problems. Much fresh data on the physiological ecology of succulent plants of southern Africa is presented - the results of more than ten years' work by the authors, both in the field and the laboratory. This information forms the basis for a better understanding of the water relations and carbon balance of succulents during short- and long-term drought and leads the authors to a definition of succulence as a tool for the temporary storage of water, essential for the conservation of physiological performance during times of drought. The authors conclude by providing a basic scheme in which the significant functional aspects of succulent life strategies are given, revealing the main trends in the biology of these fascinating plants.
Temperate-zone forests have been shaped by fire, wind and grazing over thousands of years. This book provides a major contribution to the study of their dynamics by considering three important themes: • The combined influence of wind, fire and herbivory on the successional trajectories and structural characteristics of forests • The interaction of deciduous and evergreen tree species to form mosaics which, in turn, influence the environment and disturbance regime • The significance of temporal and spatial scale with regard to the overall impact of disturbances These themes are explored via case studies from the forests in the Lake States of the USA (Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan) where the presence of large primary forest remnants provides a unique opportunity to study the long-term dynamics of near-boreal, pine and hardwood-hemlock forests. The comparability of these forests to forests in other temperate zones allows generalizations to be made that may apply more widely.
The predictability of the physical arrangement of plants, at whatever scale it is viewed, is referred to as their spatial pattern. Spatial pattern is a crucial aspect of vegetation which has important implications not only for the plants themselves, but also for other organisms which interact with plants, such as herbivores and pollinators, or those animals for which plants provide a habitat. This book describes and evaluates methods for detecting and quantifying a variety of characteristics of spatial pattern. As well as discussing the concepts on which these techniques are based, examples from real field studies and worked examples are included, which, together with numerous line figures, help guide the reader through the text. The result is a book that will be of value to graduate students and research workers in the fields of vegetation science, conservation biology and applied ecology.
The rapid expansion od industry and the excessive demands made on limited natural resources have caused genuine concern at all levels of society. In the past this concern has concentrated on plants and animals and their relationships with their environments, but now attention is also turning towards microorganisms whose role is crucial to so many natural processes - from global life and mineral cycles through to the production of beer and milk products. After a brief introduction to microbiology this book concentrates on the ecological aspects of microbial life covering a wide variety of topics including structure, behaviour, growth, dispersal, interactions and how microbes act as symbionts and pathogens. Such a wide-ranging interdisciplinary approach will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students of microbiology, plant and animal ecology, agronomy, forestry and environmental sciences. Professionals working in the same fields will also find it informative as will those working in
The Background of Ecology is a critical and up-to-date review of the origins and development of ecology, with emphasis on the major concepts and theories shared in the ecological traditions of plant and animal ecology, limnology, and oceanography. The work traces developments in each of these somewhat isolated areas and identifies, where possible, parallels or convergences among them. Dr McIntosh describes how ecology emerged as a science in the context of nineteenth-century natural histor
The adaptation of herbivore behaviour to seasonal and locational variations in vegetation quantity and quality is inadequately modelled by conventional methods. Norman Owen-Smith innovatively links the principles of adaptive behaviour to their consequences for population dynamics and community ecology, through the application of a metaphysiological modelling approach. The main focus is on large mammalian herbivores occupying seasonally variable environments such as those characterised by African savannahs, but applications to temperate zone ungulates are also included. Issues of habitat suitability, species coexistence, and population stability or instability are similarly investigated. The modelling approach accommodates various sources of environmental variability, in space and time, in a simple conceptual way and has the potential to be applied to other consumer-resource systems. This text highlights the crucial importance of adaptive consumer responses to environmental variability
Wildfires kill many animals, but are populations of animals affected? How do animals survive the passage of fire? Why do some tree species survive and others die in a fire? Do frequent fires cause changes in plant community composition? Answering questions such as these requires an understanding of the ecological effects of fire. Aimed at senior undergraduate students, researchers, foresters and other land managers, Dr Whelan's book examines the changes wrought by fires with reference to general ecological theory. The impacts of fires on individual organisms, populations and communities are examined separately, and emphasis is placed on the importance of fire regime. Each chapter includes a listing of 'outstanding questions' that identify gaps in current knowledge. The book finishes by summarising the major aspects of ecology that are of particular relevance to management of fires - both protection against wildfires and deliberate use of fire.
Wildfires kill many animals, but are populations of animals affected? How do animals survive the passage of fire? Why do some tree species survive and others die in a fire? Do frequent fires cause changes in plant community composition? Answering questions such as these requires an understanding of the ecological effects of fire. Aimed at senior undergraduate students, researchers, foresters and other land managers, Dr Whelan's book examines the changes wrought by fires with reference to general ecological theory. The impacts of fires on individual organisms, populations and communities are examined separately, and emphasis is placed on the importance of fire regime. Each chapter includes a listing of 'outstanding questions' that identify gaps in current knowledge. The book finishes by summarising the major aspects of ecology that are of particular relevance to management of fires - both protection against wildfires and deliberate use of fire.
It is almost dogma that the boreal forest in North America is a fire-dependent forest, yet ecologists often do not consider in any technical detail how forest fires produce effects on individual plants and on plant populations. Consequently, the causal connection between the behaviour of fire and its ecological consequences is poorly understood. This book sets out to correct this deficiency by assembling the relevant studies of fire intensity, rate of spread, fuel consumption, fire frequency and fire weather in the North American boreal forest. The central thesis is that the North American boreal forest has at least four wildfire characteristics that are important in understanding the dynamics of its plant populations: the large size of the burns with respect to dispersal distances, the short recurrence time of fire with respect to tree lifespans, the high mortality of plants due to the predominance of crown fires, and a good germination surface due to the large area of the forest
Riparian Landscapes examines the ecological systems of streamside and floodplain areas from the perspective of landscape ecology. The specific spatial pattern of riparian vegetation is seen as a result of, and a control on, the ecological, geomorphological, and hydrological processes that operate along rivers. Riparian structures are controlled by the spatial dynamics of channels, flooding and soil moisture. These dynamics are part of integrated cascades of water, sediment, nutrients and carbon, to which animal and plant species respond in ways that illuminate community structure and competition. The role of the riparian zone in controlling species distribution and abundance is discussed. Intelligent management of these valuable ecological resources is highlighted. The potential for linking hydrological, geomorphological and ecological simulation models is also explored.
The mechanisms of macroevolutionary change have long been a contentious issue. Palaeoecological evidence, presented in this book, shows that evolutionary processes visible in ecological time do not build up into macroevolutionary trends, contrary to Darwin's original thesis. The author discusses how climatic oscillations on ice-age time-scales are paced by variations in the Earth's orbit, and have thus been a permanent feature of Earth history. There is, however, little evidence for macroevolutionary change in response to these climatic changes, suggesting that over geological time macroevolution does not occur as a result of accumulated short term processes. These conclusions are used to construct a post-modern evolutionary synthesis in which evolution and ecology play an equal role. Written by a leading palaeoecologist, this book will be of interest to researchers in both ecology and evolutionary biology.
The predictability of the physical arrangement of plants, at whatever scale it is viewed, is referred to as their spatial pattern. Spatial pattern is a crucial aspect of vegetation which has important implications not only for the plants themselves, but also for other organisms which interact with plants, such as herbivores and pollinators, or those animals for which plants provide a habitat. This book describes and evaluates methods for detecting and quantifying a variety of characteristics of spatial pattern. As well as discussing the concepts on which these techniques are based, examples from real field studies and worked examples are included, which, together with numerous line figures, help guide the reader through the text. The result is a book that will be of value to graduate students and research workers in the fields of vegetation science, conservation biology and applied ecology.
The central thesis for plant ecology is that climate exerts the dominant control on the distribution of the major vegetation types of the world. This book sets out to examine this often neglected area in two ways. In the first part the author analyses the distribution of species in relation to climate over different scales of time and place. In the second, he reviews the various approaches to explaining observed correlation between plant distribution and climate, and to establishing the mechanisms of control in physiological and biochemical terms. Dr Woodward is an authority on plant-climate relationships, and has made some of the most important contributions to our understanding of the subject. This book builds on his extensive knowledge of the subject to provide a modern text on this basic problem of plant ecology, encompassing the techniques of palaeoecology, climatology, ecology, physiology, biochemistry and genetics.
This book was originally published in 1985. In the twenty years preceding publication very considerable advances were made in our understanding of the physiology and ecology of lichens and of the functional nature of the symbiosis between the algal and fungal partners. This book provides a critical and selective review of lichen physiological ecology. The approach is a broad one, with consideration given to all the major factors in the lichen's environment and to the important processes of nitrogen fixation, photosynthesis and respiration. The book will be of interest to students and research workers in plant ecology, plant physiology and lichenology.
Fluctuations in fish populations in lakes can cascade through food webs to alter nutrient cycling, algal biomass and primary production. Trophic cascades may interact with nutrients and physical factors to explain most of the variance in lake ecosystem process rates. In this 1993 book, a multidisciplinary research team tests this idea by manipulating whole lakes experimentally, and coordinating this with palaeolimnological studies, simulation modelling, and small-scale enclosure experiments. Consequences of predator-prey interactions, behavioural responses of fishes, diel vertical migration of zooplankton, plankton community change, primary production, nutrient cycling and microbial processes are described. Palaeolimnological techniques enable the reconstruction of trophic interactions from past decades. Prospects for analysing the interaction of food web structure and nutrient input in lakes are explored.
Biogeography is an increasingly important area for ecology, dynamic biogeography being the study of biological patterns and processes on a broad scale both geographically and temporally. Dynamic Biogeography opens with a survey of the different approaches encountered within the subject. The remainder of the book is arranged into four parts. The first is concerned with patterns of concordance; both quantitative and qualitative classifications are discussed. Geographical trends in species' diversity and biological traits are viewed, with Part 3 leading into areography or the analysis of species ranges. The book is drawn together by an overview of all the scales of variation and a glimpse into the future of biogeography. This book will be of interest primarily to scientists in the fields of ecology and biogeography; but the interdisciplinary approach should appeal to all those involved in the biological sciences.
This book provides a broad introduction to saltmarsh ecology, concentrating on plants, although much of the information should also be of interest to zoologists. Particular attention is given to the geographical diversity of saltmarsh vegetation and to the ecophysiological mechanisms which permit tolerance to the major challenges of high, but variable, soil salinities and of frequently waterlogged soils. The importance of saltmarshes as functioning ecosystems is discussed and issues relevant to the long-term conservation and management of saltmarshes are considered. Saltmarsh Ecology will be useful to upper level undergraduates and wetland scientists.
Mutualistic interactions between ants and plants involve rewards offered by plants and services performed by ants in a mutually advantageous relationship. The rewards are principally food and/or nest sites, and ants in turn perform a number of services for plants: they disperse and plant seeds; they protect foliage, buds, and reproductive structures from enemies such as herbivores and seed predators; they fertilize plants with essential nutrients; and they may sometimes function as pollinators. In this book, initially published in 1985, Professor Beattie reviews the fascinating natural history of ant–plant interactions, discusses the scientific evidence for the mutualistic nature of these relationships, and reaches some conclusions about the ecological and evolutionary processes that mold them. This important work explores the natural history, experimental approach, and integration with contemporary evolutionary and ecological literature of the time will appeal to a wide variety of
This informative book, first published in 1987, presents the theories of community ecology within the context of a natural example. The text describes and examines issues in community ecology and shows how research on salamanders has helped to solve some of the problems surrounding the theories. Salamanders exist in stable populations of the kind assumed in community theory and are more appropriate than most other animals for research on the applications of that theory. The interesting and meaningful results, collected from observation on these excellent subjects posed challenges to beliefs within community ecology. Life histories of salamanders, fieldwork in distinctly differing habitats, competition, predation and evolution are discussed in an easily readable text. Professional ecologists and students of community ecology and herpetology will be interedted in the information synthesised in this book.
