Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- About the Author -- List of Figures -- The History of Ecology -- 1 Introduction: The Idea of Ecology -- References -- 2 Ecological Thinking in the Western Tradition -- 2.1 Protoecology -- 2.1.1 Ontological Pregnancy of Biotic Communities -- 2.1.2 Natural History -- 2.1.3 Arcadianism -- 2.2 Modern Ecology -- 2.2.1 Normative Ecology -- 2.2.2 Scientific Ecology -- 2.3 Conclusion: Five Features of the Idea of Ecology -- 2.3.1 Naturalism -- 2.3.2 Ontological Interconnectedness -- 2.3.3 Holism -- 2.3.4 Nonanthropocentrism -- 2.3.5 Ecological Justice -- References -- The Metaphysics of Ecology -- 3 Entities in Patterned Process -- 3.1 Mechanism -- 3.1.1 The Mechanical View of Nature -- 3.1.2 The Organism as Machine -- 3.2 Organicism -- 3.2.1 Continuities in Nature -- 3.2.2 Discontinuities in Nature -- 3.2.3 Beauty in Nature -- 3.2.4 Teleonomy and Teleomaty -- 3.3 Ecological Entities and Process -- 3.3.1 Ecological Entities -- 3.3.2 Ecological Process -- 3.4 Four Ontologies of the Ecological Entity -- 3.4.1 The Superorganism -- 3.4.2 The Coincidental Assemblage -- 3.4.3 The Ecosystem -- 3.4.4 The Stochastic Community -- 3.5 Conclusion -- References -- 4 Patterned Process in Biological Evolution -- 4.1 One Long Argument: The Theory of Descent with Modifications Through Natural Selection -- 4.2 The Evolution of Metaphysics -- 4.3 The Adaptation Debate -- 4.4 Ecosystem Ecology, Evolutionary Ecology, and Integrative Ecology -- 4.4.1 Ecosystem Ecology -- 4.4.2 Evolutionary Ecology -- 4.4.3 Integrative Ecology -- 4.5 Conclusion -- References -- 5 Reductionism, Holism, and Hierarchy Theory -- 5.1 Reductionism -- 5.2 Holism -- 5.3 Hierarchy Theory -- 5.3.1 Koestler -- 5.3.2 Nested, Nonnested, and Unified Hierarchies -- 5.3.3 Applied Hierarchy Theory -- 5.4 Conclusion -- References.

Life occurs, as far as we know, only as part of the earthly biosphere. Yet the earth's biotic resources are experiencing a spreading crisis that is leading not only to the most rapid loss of species in the last 65 million years, but also causing abrupt changes in the structure and function of natural communities. This disturbance, unfortunately, is the result of human carelessness in the name of advancing civilisation. As our technologies and societies continue to improve and grow, we remove ourselves more and more from our natural habitat; as a consequence, we destroy countless numbers of species of every style and complexity. To identify and begin rectifying this dangerous situation, a group of outstanding environmental scientists has compiled a collection of case studies that illustrate the changes being wrought on the biosphere by the human presence

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- PART I APPROACHES, IDEAS, AND THEORIES IN COMMUNITY ECOLOGY -- 2. How Ecologists Study Communities -- 3. A Brief History of Ideas in Community Ecology -- PART II THE THEORY OF ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES -- 4. The Pursuit of Generality in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology -- 5. High-Level Processes in Ecological Communities -- 6. Simulating Dynamics in Ecological Communities -- PART III EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE -- 7. The Nature of Empirical Evidence -- 8. Empirical Evidence: Selection

The concept of entropy in thermodynamics is a complex one, though it is fundamental in understanding physics, the workings of the mind, and biology. Entropy is the measure of the quality of energy, and it can also refer to the turn from order to disorder or randomness in isolated systems. In open systems, such as biology, entropy is formulated in terms of production and energy flow. This book establishes a novel view of complex biological systems and the earth using this concept of entropy, encompassing the interdisciplinary area of biology, ecology and physics. This book considers the development over time of a range of biologically complex systems such as plants, animals, humans, and ecosystems, describing them in terms of the second law of thermodynamics, entropy. With its broad coverage of biological systems, this book will be useful for students of environmental science as well as students in biology and physics. Includes discussion of multiple complex systems including the earth and biological systems within it. Suitable for those with little physics background who wish to learn how the laws of physics apply to ecological systems. Clearly organized by system, making information easy to access.

A plethora of different theories, models, and concepts make up the field of community ecology. Amid this vast body of work, is it possible to build one general theory of ecological communities? What other scientific areas might serve as a guiding framework? As it turns out, the core focus of community ecology—understanding patterns of diversity and composition of biological variants across space and time—is shared by evolutionary biology and its very coherent conceptual framework, population genetics theory. The Theory of Ecological Communities takes this as a starting point to pull together community ecology's various perspectives into a more unified whole. Mark Vellend builds a theory of ecological communities based on four overarching processes: selection among species, drift, dispersal, and speciation. These are analogues of the four central processes in population genetics theory—selection within species, drift, gene flow, and mutation—and together they subsume almost all of the many dozens of more specific models built to describe the dynamics of communities of interacting species. The result is a theory that allows the effects of many low-level processes, such as competition, facilitation, predation, disturbance, stress, succession, colonization, and local extinction to be understood as the underpinnings of high-level processes with widely applicable consequences for ecological communities.Reframing the numerous existing ideas in community ecology, The Theory of Ecological Communities provides a new way for thinking about biological composition and diversity.

Chapter 1. Conservation of Tropical Forest for the Well-being of Community -- Chapter 2. Forest Pathology in Ecosystem Services -- Chapter 3. Non-Timber Forest Problems: NTFPs in Conservation and Development Initiatives -- Chapter 4. Characterizing and assessing forest density and productivity of Ulu Muda Forest Reserve based on satellite imageries -- Chapter 5. Temporal Reduction of Forest Ecosystem Services and Drivers of Deforestation -- Chapter 6. A Trade-Off Analysis of Sustainable Landscape Planning: A Case Study of Sintang Regency (Heart of Borneo), Kalimantan -- Chapter 7. Land Use and Land Cover Change Prediction using ANN-CA model -- Chapter 8. Linking Blue-Green Infrastructure to Micoclimate and Human Thermal Comfort for Urban Cooling: A review -- Chapter 9. Assessing the Community Participation in Ecotourism at Ulu Muda Forest Reserve Malaysia -- Chapter 10. Improving Livelihood of Sugar Palm Community in Malaysia -- Chapter 11. Local community involvement in Mangrove Forest conservation and edutourism in Kampung Sijangkang -- Chapter 12. The Resilience of the Natural Resource Dependency of Indigenous People in a Wilderness Area: The Case of Virachey National Park, Cambodia -- Chapter 13. Reconciling the values and needs of wildlife and local communities: A way forward to deal with human-wildlife conflicts in Malaysia.