Applying Ecology [antikvár]

Undergraduates often distinguish between textbooks and reference books according to their thickness. The latter are to be dipped into, whereas textbooks have a greater chance of being read in their entirety. I hope this book is short enough to encourage students to read it from cover to cover - ecology is one science that requires an overview of the whole discipline. The book attempts to review the theory behind a range of applications of ecology, and a more complete understanding emerges from a broad view of the subject. The central aims of this text are student understanding of these main concepts and to provide a critique of their current applications. In each chapter the relevant ecological theory is developed before considering how it is applied to particular environmental problems. For the most part, examples or specific details of a technique are confined to the figures. This allows the concepts to be follow sequentially, enabling students to struc- ture their thinking without undue clutter. The development of some of these ideas does not end with a single chapter but is followed up with applications in different areas, so that some themes run throughout the book. Chapter 1 provides an overview of ecological thinking, and intro- duces some of the general ideas that recur throughout the text. Next there is a conventional development of ecological theory - follow- ing the normal hierarchy from the level of the individual organism through to ecosystem ecology. This is not an exhaustive survey of applied ecology, and much has had to be pruned away to keep it to a reasonable size. To aid this, and to give coherence to each subject, specific habitats or groups of organisms are considered in each chapter. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed using contrasting examples in most chapters, and hope that this serves to highlight the theory. Overall, the main concepts, the major groups of organisms, the signifi- cant pollutants and the important environmental issues are covered, in some combination. The recommended texts at the end of each chapter are a guide to where this material can be followed up. The main concepts are highlighted in bold type where they first occur, and a series of cross- references are used for direction to related topics elsewhere in the text.