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This open access book addresses the epistemological and ontological significance as well as the scope of new mechanism. In particular, this book addresses the issues of what is "new" about new mechanism, the epistemological and ontological reasons underlying the adoption of mechanistic instead of other modelling strategies as well as the possibility of mechanistic explanation to accommodate a non-trivial notion of emergence. Arguably, new mechanism has been particularly successful in making sense of scientific practice in the molecular life sciences. But what about other sciences? This book enlarges the context of analysis, addressing the issue of the putative compatibility between the current ways of conceiving new mechanism and actual scientific practices in quantum physics, chemistry, biochemistry, developmental biology and the cognitive sciences.

This open access book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be more a concern than an accomplished task. Why is it so? The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that "thing" to which the word 'biodiversity' refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous. ; Features essays that are explicitly critical of the species approach to biodiversity Presents bio-philosophical perspectives on the interaction between biodiversity's units, levels, and scales Serves as an interdisciplinary contribution to the emergent field of biodiversity studies