Introductory Ecology

by Cotgreave, Peter; Forseth, Irwin

• ISBN13: 9780632042272
• ISBN10: 0632042273
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-02-01
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This book is a core introductory text which examines basic principles of ecology for first year undergraduates. The authors have expertise in population ecology and plant ecophysiology which will give the book a balanced treatment of plant and animal ecology and a strong applied and evolutionary bias. The book will not present ecology as a tight, predictive science in the way that other areas of biology (such as genetics) can be. Instead, it will aim to give the student a good grounding in the basics of ecology, including patterns in biodiversity, population biology, the ecology of assemblages and the interpretation of ecological data. It will also try to stress the links between different aspects and different levels and also emphasise the overall intellectual coherence of the subject.

Author Biography

Peter Cotgreave is an animal ecologist who has worked for the University of Oxford and the Zoological Society of London. His research interests centre on abundance and rarity within animal communities Irwin Forseth is a plant physiological ecologist who has taught introductory ecology and plant ecology at the University of Maryland since 1982. His research focuses on plant responses to the environment

Table of Contents

Preface	vi
The diversity of life	1	(17)
Global patterns of biodiversity and productivity: biomes	18	(22)
Interpreting ecological information	40	(17)
Climate and life on Earth	57	(19)
Interactions between individuals and the physical environment	76	(18)
Introducting biotic interactions and population models	94	(14)
Population demography and life history patterns	108	(16)
Interspecific competition	124	(19)
Predation, herbivory, parsitism and other interactions between populations	143	(20)
Similarities and differences in ecological interactions	163	(16)
Ecological communities	179	(18)
Ecosystems: the flux of energy and matter	197	(22)
The structure and composition of ecological communities	219	(15)
Species richness, abundance and diversity	234	(21)
Concluding remarks	255	(1)
References	256	(7)
Index	263