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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Life sciences: general issues > Ecological science, the Biosphere
For the first time, here is a book that focuses on in vitro approaches to the study of the toxicology of polluting agents (including heavy metals, radionuclides, micro-organics, estrogenic compounds, and complex mixtures) in the aquatic environment. The importance of in vitro methods is that they allow standardised techniques to be developed and validated for substance and species specific experiments in a controlled way. Also, they allow mechanistic studies without the problems of individual variation between animals and environmental stress.
The fossil record contains unique long-term insights into how ecosystems form and function which cannot be determined simply by examining modern systems. It also provides a record of endangered species through time, which allow us to make conservation decisions based on thousands to millions of years of information. The aim of this book is to demonstrate how palaeontological data has been or could be incorporated into ecological or conservation scientific studies. This book will be written by palaeontologists for modern ecologists and conservation scientists. Manuscripts will fall into one (or a combination) of four broad categories: case studies, review articles, practical considerations and future directions. This book will serve as both a 'how to guide' and provide the current state of knowledge for this type of research. It will highlight the unique and critical insights that can be gained by the inclusion of palaeontological data into modern ecological or conservation studies.
This book is an introduction to the dynamics of reaction-diffusion systems, with a focus on fronts and stationary spatial patterns. Emphasis is on systems that are non-standard in the sense that either the transport is not simply classical diffusion (Brownian motion) or the system is not homogeneous. A important feature is the derivation of the basic phenomenological equations from the mesoscopic system properties. Topics addressed include transport with inertia, described by persistent random walks and hyperbolic reaction-transport equations and transport by anomalous diffusion, in particular subdiffusion, where the mean square displacement grows sublinearly with time. In particular reaction-diffusion systems are studied where the medium is in turn either spatially inhomogeneous, compositionally heterogeneous or spatially discrete. Applications span a vast range of interdisciplinary fields and the systems considered can be as different as human or animal groups migrating under external influences, population ecology and evolution, complex chemical reactions, or networks of biological cells. Several chapters treat these applications in detail.
Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Palisades, New York, U.S.A., November 30-December 4, 1982
This book documents proceedings of a symposium on muskellunge developed as a memorial for Ed Crossman. It focuses on the biology, ecology, and management of muskellunge, Ed's favorite fish. The papers include survey current ecological, behavioral, and management-related issues for muskellunge fisheries. The symposium was developed to bring researchers and angles together, and was sponsored by Muskies, Inc. The papers focus on issues of importance to muskellunge populations and are developed to inform the public and fishery managers alike.
The book aims to capture, describe and convey the current significance, the values and potentials of urban biodiversity and ecosystem services to scientists and professionals in the context of sustainable urban development and ongoing urbanization processes. Current developments, different approaches and future challenges in the competition of green spaces and urban land consumption in China and Germany are elaborated, discussed and illustrated within case studies and good practice examples. The strategic goal is a long-term appreciation of the potentials and increased consideration of urban green spaces in city planning and development. This book provides tangible recommendations for urban planners, politicians and stakeholders in the fields of green infrastructure at the interface of environment and urban landscape.
This book aims to contribute significantly to the understanding of issues of value (including the ultimate value of space-related activities) which repeatedly emerge in interdisciplinary discussions on space and society. Although a recurring feature of discussions about space in the humanities, the treatment of value questions has tended to be patchy, of uneven quality and even, on occasion, idiosyncratic rather than drawing upon a close familiarity with state-of-the-art ethical theory. One of the volume's aims is to promote a more robust and theoretically informed approach to the ethical dimension of discussions on space and society. While the contributions are written in a manner which is accessible across disciplines, the book still withstands scrutiny by those whose work is primarily on ethics. At the same time it allows academics across a range of disciplines an insight into current approaches toward how the work of ethics gets done. The issues of value raised could be used to inform debates about regulation, space law and protocols for microbial discovery as well as longer-range policy debates about funding.
This volume presents the first book-length study devoted to the discussion and relevance of the notion of 'ecology' within the frame-work and 'ontology' of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari from various positions within Cultural Studies and Sciences.
This book discusses the dynamics and resource management qualities of the peri-urban interface to address climate change consequences, focusing on the peri-urban region of the global city of Bengalaru. In 5 chapters, the authors document the unique challenges experienced in peri-urban areas, including soil-water vegetation dynamics, local and regional impacts on water bodies (surface and groundwater), food production issues, and the inhibited adaptive capacity of local communities. The book also provides knowledge on implementations of environmental management by local institutions, government interventions that have acted as catalysts in promoting community based adaptation strategies, and the physical, social and economic aspects of rural-urban dynamics. The book not only adds to the scarce existing literature on peri-urban contexts, but also addresses the role of culture in protecting ecological landscapes and how traditions play an important role in coping with climate change. Furthermore, the authors expand on these climate change coping mechanisms in peri-urban areas, taking into account local cultural factors and interesting governance interventions in the context of health. The book will be of interest to planners, policy makers, and students and researchers engaged in rural-urban dynamics and climate change adaptation.
The Siberian environment is a unique region of the world that is both very strongly affected by global climate change and at the same time particularly vulnerable to its consequences. The news about the melting of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and the prospect of an ice-free shipping passage from Scandinavia to Alaska along the Russian north coast has sparked an international debate about natural resource exploitation, national boundaries and the impacts of the rapid changes on people, animals and plants. Over the last decades Siberia has also witnessed severe forest fires to an extent that is hard to imagine in other parts of the world where the po- lation density is higher, the fire-prone ecosystems cover much smaller areas and the systems of fire control are better resourced. The acceleration of the fire regime poses the question of the future of the boreal forest in the taiga region. Vegetation models have already predicted a shift of vegetation zones to the north under s- narios of global climate change. The implications of a large-scale expansion of the grassland steppe ecosystems in the south of Siberia and a retreat of the taiga forest into the tundra systems that expand towards the Arctic Ocean would be very signi- cant for the local population and the economy. I have studied Russian forests from remote sensing and modelling for about 11 years now and still find it a fascinating subject to investigate.
This two-volume work is a testament to the increasing interest in the role of microbes in sustainable agriculture and food security. Advances in microbial technologies are explored in chapters dealing with topics such as carbon sequestration, soil fertility management, sustainable crop production, and microbial signaling networks. Volume I is a collection of research findings that invites readers to examine the application of microbes in reinstating degraded ecosystems and also in establishing sustainable croplands. Highly readable entries attempt to close the knowledge gap between soil microbial associations and sustainable agriculture. An increase in the global population with changing climate is leading to environments of various abiotic and biotic stresses for agricultural crops. It therefore becomes important to identify the techniques to improve soil fertility and function using different microbial groups such as actinobacteria, microalgae, fluorescent pseudomonads and cyanobacterial systems. These are examined in this volume in greater detail. This work is a significant contribution to research in this increasingly important discipline, and will appeal to researchers in microbiology, agriculture, environmental sciences, and soil and crop sciences.
Traces of the action of mechanical and chemical boring, scraping or crushing organisms on hard substrates appear in fossil carbonates as old as the Precambrian, providing valuable palaeoenvironmental indicators. Bioerosion has been extensively studied in tropical seas, but data from cold-temperate to polar settings remain sparse. This book presents an experimental study into the pace of carbonate degradation and the chronology of boring community development along a bathymetric gradient in high-latitude settings.
This will be the first textbook on the integration of food, energy and water systems (FEWS). In recent years, the world has seen a dramatic rise in interdisciplinary energy and environmental courses and degrees at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In the US for instance, the number and variety of such programs has increased significantly over the past decade, Simultaneously, national and international initiatives that integrate food, energy and water systems have been launched. This textbook provides a substantive introduction to the food-energy-water nexus suitable for use in higher level undergraduate and graduate level courses and for scholars moving into the field of nexus studies without a strong background in all three areas and the many aspects of nexus studies.
Both fire and climatic variability have monumental impacts on the dynamics of temperate ecosystems. These impacts can sometimes be extreme or devastating as seen in recent El Nino/La Nina cycles and in uncontrolled fire occurrences. This volume brings together research conducted in western North and South America, areas of a great deal of collaborative work on the influence of people and climate change on fire regimes. In order to give perspective to patterns of change over time, it emphasizes the integration of paleoecological studies with studies of modern ecosystems. Data from a range of spatial scales, from individual plants to communities and ecosystems to landscape and regional levels, are included. Contributions come from fire ecology, paleoecology, biogeography, paleoclimatology, landscape and ecosystem ecology, ecological modeling, forest management, plant community ecology and plant morphology. The book gives a synthetic overview of methods, data and simulation models for evaluating fire regime processes in forests, shrublands and woodlands and assembles case studies of fire, climate and land use histories. The unique approach of this book gives researchers the benefits of a north-south comparison as well as the integration of paleoecological histories, current ecosystem dynamics and modeling of future changes.
presents a history of radioecology, from World War II through to the critical years of the Cold War reviews, synthesizes and discusses the implications of the ecological research supported by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) of the United States government, from World War II to the early 1970s. will be of great interest to students and scholars of radioecology, environmental pollution, environmental technology, bioscience and environmental history.
For the first time, an effort to conduct coordinated
interdisciplinary research on a vast and complex saline lake has
been undertaken for the purposes of providing baseline data to
guide restoration project activities. This volume compiles
state-of-the-art science for the Salton Sea and will serve as the
foundation for the next several generations of scientific inquiry
for California's largest lake. The science presented here reveals
the Salton Sea to be one of the most productive fisheries in the
world, details why the Salton Sea is important to migratory and
wintering birds, investigates the microbial world and reports
numerous taxa new to science, and documents chemical and physical
interactions which make this inland saline lake function.
An international symposium entitled "Ocean, River and Lakes: Energy and Substance Transfers at Interfaces" was held in Nantes, France in October 1996. It was the third International Joint Conference on Limnology and Oceanography which brings together specialists of both environments. Considered to be necessary in Europe, this confrontation of two different aspects of common subjects could produce innovative approaches. The main purpose concerns scientific researches relative to the interfaces between various aquatic environment compartments. The principal treated topics are bioavailability and mobility of substances, influence of biotic and abiotic factors on transfers, and fluxes at the interfaces. It is particularly interesting to note the contribution of limnologists and oceanographers on the impact of nutrients and pollutants, and flux quantification of river basin inputs. As well as scientists, this book is also of interest to all engineers and consultants involved in teaching and working in aquatic management, restoration and enhancement.
Arthropods are invertebrates that constitute over 90% of the animal kingdom, and their bio-ecology is closely linked with global functioning and survival. Arthropods play an important role in maintaining the health of ecosystems, provide livelihoods and nutrition to human communities, and are important indicators of environmental change. Yet the population trends of several arthropods species show them to be in decline. Arthropods constitute a dominant group with 1.2 million species influencing earth's biodiversity. Among arthropods, insects are predominant, with ca. 1 million species and having evolved some 350 million years ago. Arthropods are closely associated with living and non-living entities alike, making the ecosystem services they provide crucially important. In order to be effective, plans for the conservation of arthropods and ecosystems should include a mixture of strategies like protecting key habitats and genomic studies to formulate relevant policies for in situ and ex situ conservation. This two-volume book focuses on capturing the essentials of arthropod inventories, biology, and conservation. Further, it seeks to identify the mechanisms by which arthropod populations can be sustained in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and by means of which certain problematic species be managed without producing harmful environmental side-effects. This edited compilation includes chapters contributed by over 80 biologists on a wide range of topics embracing the diversity, distribution, utility and conservation of arthropods and select groups of insect taxa. More importantly, it describes in detail the mechanisms of sustaining arthropod ecosystems, services and populations. It addresses the contribution of modern biological tools such as molecular and genetic techniques regulating gene expression, as well as conventional, indigenous practices in arthropod conservation. The contributors reiterate the importance of documenting and understanding the biology of arthropods from a holistic perspective before addressing conservation issues at large. This book offers a valuable resource for all zoologists, entomologists, ecologists, conservation biologists, policy makers, teachers and students interested in the conservation of biological resources.
The volume focuses on the ecological functioning of rivers, which has received less attention than functioning of lakes and reservoirs. The selected papers cover a large range of topics relating to aquatic communities, eutrophication, nutrient dynamics and organic pollution, erosion and sediment transport, and fate of micropollutants at the basin scale. Integrated approaches developed in order to study the ecological functioning of fluvial systems perturbed by human activity are presented. This functioning is analysed from the point of view of fundamental research, but insights into system management are not neglected. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of aquatic ecology, river system functioning, and water surface pollution, to postgraduate students, to the institutions involved in water resource management, and to the drinking water and waste water treatment industries. It draws information from many large river systems in the world.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, consist of 572 islands with a land area of 8,249 km2. Their topography is hilly and undulating, with elevations up to 732 m on the Andaman and up to 568 m on the Nicobar Islands. They are known for their rich biodiversity and a very high degree of endemicity in all taxa, especially in plants, reptiles, fishes and corals. Their habitats include bays, mangroves, moist deciduous forests and evergreen forests. Comprising 20 chapters each written by an expert or professional in his/her particular field this book offers new insights into the fascinating faunal communities of these islands and provides the fundamentals for their conservation and environmental management.
Is ecological knowledge relevant to environmental policy and if so, to what extent and in what way? After a series of oxygen depletion events in coastal waters in the 1980s, North Sea states acted to reduce inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus to the North Sea. The book analyzes the role of scientists and scientific information, as well as civil servants, in the formulation and implementation of these decisions.
Toward the end of his life, Maurice Merleau-Ponty made a striking retrieval of F. W. J. Schelling s philosophy of nature. "The Barbarian Principle" explores the relationship between these two thinkers on this topic, opening up a dialogue with contemporary philosophical and ecological significance that will be of special interest to philosophers working in phenomenology and German idealism."
Riverbank filtration is widely used in Europe and to some extent in
the United States for the public water supply. It is a
cost-effective and realisable treatment technology in which
horizontal and vertical wells pump a mixture of ground water and
induced surface water from a river. This book describes the
biogeochemical issues involved in contaminant removal from surface
water and the mechanisms of pathogen removal. Specifically, the
following three points are considered: |
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