Ecology and How to Do It | |
Introduction | |
Scales, diversity and rigor | |
Questions of scale | |
The diversity of ecological evidence | |
Statistics and scientific rigor | |
Ecology in practice | |
The brown trout in New Zealand - effects on individuals, populations, communities and ecosystems | |
Successions on old fields in Minnesota - a study in time and space | |
Hubbard Brook - a long-term commitment of large-scale significance | |
A model study: Genetically modified crops - bad for biodiversity? | |
Summary | |
Review Questions | |
The Ecology of Evolution | |
Introduction | |
Evolution by natural selection | |
Evolution within species | |
Geographical variation within species | |
Variation within a species with man-made selection pressures | |
Adaptive peaks and specialized abysses | |
The ecology of speciation | |
What do we mean by a "species"? | |
Islands and speciation | |
The effects of climate change on the evolution and distribution of species | |
The effects of continental drift on the ecology of evolution | |
Interpreting the results of evolution: convergent and parallel evolution | |
Summary | |
Review Questions | |
Physical Conditions and the Availability of Resources | |
Introduction | |
Environmental conditions | |
What do we mean by "harsh," "benign," and "extreme"? | |
Effects of conditions | |
Conditions as stimuli | |
The effects of conditions on interactions between organisms | |
Responses by sedentary organisms | |
Animal responses to environmental temperature | |
Microorganisms in extreme environments | |
Plant resources | |
Solar radiation | |
Water | |
Mineral nutrients | |
Carbon dioxide | |
Animals and their resources | |
Nutritional needs and provisions | |
Defense | |
The effect of intraspecific competition for resources | |
Conditions, resources, and the ecological niche | |
Summary | |
Review Questions | |
Conditions, Resources and the World's Communities | |
Introduction | |
Geographical patterns at large and small scales | |
Large-scale climatic patterns | |
Small-scale patterns in conditions and resources | |
Patterns in conditions and resources in aquatic environments | |
Temporal patterns in conditions and resources - succession | |
The terrestrial biomes | |
Describing and classifying biomes | |
Tropical rain forest | |
Savanna | |
Temperate grasslands | |
Desert | |
Temperate forest | |
Northern coniferous forest (taiga) grading into tundra | |
Aquatic environments | |
Stream ecology | |
Lake ecology | |
The oceans | |
Coasts | |
Estuaries | |
Summary | |
Review Questions | |
Birth, Death and Movement | |
Introduction | |
What is an individual? | |
Counting individuals, births, and deaths | |
Life Cycles | |
Life cycles and reproduction | |
Annual life cycles | |
Longer life cycles | |
Monitoring birth and death: life tables and fecundity schedules | |
Annual life tables | |
Life tables for populations with overlapping generations | |
A classification of survivorship curves | |
Dispersal and migration | |
Dispersal determining abundance | |
The role of migration | |
The impact of intraspecific competition on populations | |
Patterns of population growth | |
Life history patterns | |
Summary | |
Review Questions | |
Interspecific Competition | |
Introduction | |
The ecological effects of interspecific competition | |
Competition between diatoms for silicate | |
Coexistence and exclusion of competing salmonid fishes | |
Some general observations | |
Coexistence and exclusion of competing bumble bees | |
Coexistence of competing diatoms | |
Coexistence of competing rode | |
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