Acridids (grasshoppers and locusts) can range from being rare curiosities to abundant menaces. Some are threatened with extinction and become subjects of intensive conservation efforts, while others are devastating pests and become the objects of massive control programmes. Even within a species, there are times when the animal is so abundant that its crushed masses cause the wheels of trains to skid (the Rocky Mountain grasshopper, Melanoplus spretus Walsh in western North America in the 1860s and I 870s), while at other times the animal is alarmingly scarce (the Rocky Mountain grasshopper went extinct in the early 1900s). Why are there these extremes in one insect family, and even in a single species? The NATO workshop examined this paradox and its implications for Environmental Security, which must address both the elements of land use (agricultural production and pest management) and conservation of biodiversity. The reconciliation of these objectives clearly demands a critical assessment of current knowledge and policies, identification of future research, and close working relationships among scientists. Insects can present two clear faces, as well as the intervening gradation. These extremes require us to respond in two ways: conservation of scarce species and suppression of abundant (harmful) species. But perhaps most important, these opposite poles also provide the opportunity for an exchange of information and insight.

Ecologists use a remarkable range of methods and techniques to understand complex, inherently variable, and functionally diverse entities and processes across a staggering range of spatial, temporal and interactive scales. These multiple perspectives make ecology very different to the exemplar of science often presented by philosophers. In Philosophical Foundations for the Practices of Ecology, designed for graduate students and researchers, ecology is put into a new philosophical framework that engages with this inherent pluralism while still placing constraints on the ways that we can investigate and understand nature. The authors begin by exploring the sources of variety in the practice of ecology and how these have led to the current conceptual confusion. They argue that the solution is to adopt the approach of constrained perspectivism and go on to explore the ontological, metaphysical, and epistemological aspects of this position and how it can be used in ecological research and teaching.

Acridids (grasshoppers and locusts) can range from being rare curiosities to abundant menaces. Some are threatened with extinction and become subjects of intensive conservation efforts, while others are devastating pests and become the objects of massive control programmes. Even within a species, there are times when the animal is so abundant that its crushed masses cause the wheels of trains to skid (the Rocky Mountain grasshopper, Melanoplus spretus Walsh in western North America in the 1860s and I 870s), while at other times the animal is alarmingly scarce (the Rocky Mountain grasshopper went extinct in the early 1900s). Why are there these extremes in one insect family, and even in a single species? The NATO workshop examined this paradox and its implications for Environmental Security, which must address both the elements of land use (agricultural production and pest management) and conservation of biodiversity. The reconciliation of these objectives clearly demands a critical assessment of current knowledge and policies, identification of future research, and close working relationships among scientists. Insects can present two clear faces, as well as the intervening gradation. These extremes require us to respond in two ways: conservation of scarce species and suppression of abundant (harmful) species. But perhaps most important, these opposite poles also provide the opportunity for an exchange of information and insight.

In Six-Legged Soldiers, Jeffrey A. Lockwood paints a brilliant portrait of the many weirdly creative, truly frightening, and ultimately powerful ways in which insects have been used as weapons of war, terror, and torture. He concludes with a critical analysis of today's defenses--and homeland security's dangerous shortcomings--with respect to entomological attacks.
Beginning in prehistoric times and building toward a near and disturbing future, the reader is taken on a journey of innovation and depravity. Lockwood, an award-winning science writer, begins with the use of "bee bombs" in the ancient world and explores the role of insect-borne disease in changing the course of major battles, from Napoleon's military campaigns to the trenches of World War I. He explores the horrific programs of insect weaponization during World War II: airplanes designed to drop plague-infested fleas, facilities rearing tens of millions of crop-devouring beetles, and prison camps where doctors tested disease-carrying lice on inmates. The Cold War saw secret government operations involving the mass release of specially developed strains of mosquitoes on an unsuspecting American public--along with the alleged use of disease-carrying and crop-eating pests against North Korea and Cuba. Lockwood reveals how easy it would be to use insects in warfare and terrorism today, pointing to how domestic eco-terrorists in 1989 extorted government officials and wreaked economic and political havoc by threatening to release the notorious Medfly into California's crops.
A remarkable story of human ingenuity--and brutality--Six-Legged Soldiers is the first comprehensive look at the use of insects as weapons of war, from ancient times to the present day.

The book, Estimation and Analysis of Insect Populations, is about estimation of population parameters in stage frequency structured populations and the subsequent use of this information in development of mathematical and computer models. The unique contribution of this work is the extensive, comparative review of statistical methods used in the estimation of stage frequency parameters, the review of modeling techniques, and presentation of new approaches to both parameter estimation and modeling. Thus, this book will be of value in both pedagogic and research applications. This book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and research scientists in the fields of statistics, entomology, and other areas of applied population ecology. It could well serve as either the primary text or as an important reference in courses involving estimation, analysis, and modeling of stage frequency structured populations. As such, advertisement should be directed toward academic, departments and research laboratories involved in natural resource management (e.g. Fisheries and Wildlife, Entomology, Forestry), or applied mathematics (e.g. Statistics).

Feminist Ecocriticism examines the interplay of women and nature as seen through literary theory and criticism, drawing on insights from such diverse fields as chaos theory and psychoanalysis, while examining genres ranging from nineteenth-century sentimental literature to contemporary science fiction. The book explores the central claim of ecofeminism-that there is a connection between environmental degradation and the subordination of women-with the goal of identifying and fostering liberatory alternatives. Feminist Ecocriticism analyzes the work of such diverse women writers as Rachel Carson, Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Mary Shelley. By including chapters from a comparable number of women and men, this book dispels the notion that ecofeminism is relevant to and used by only female scholars. After uncovering the oppressive dichotomies of male/female and nature/culture that underlie contemporary environmental problems, Feminist Ecocriticism focuses specifically on emancipatory strategies employed by ecofeminist literary critics as antidotes, asking what our lives might be like as those strategies become increasingly successful in overcoming oppression. Thus, ecofeminism is not limited to the critique of literature, but also helps identify and articulate liberatory ideals that can be actualized in the real world, in the process transforming everyday life. Providing an alternative to rugged individualism, for example, ecofeminist literature promotes a more fulfilling sense of interrelationship with both community and the land. In the process of exploring literature from ecofeminist perspectives, the book reveals strategies of emancipation that have already begun to give rise to more hopeful ecological narratives. Feminist Ecocriticism provides a novel integration of two important strands of contemporary literary criticism that have often failed to make contact: feminist criticism and ecocriticism. The openness of both feminist criticism and ecocriticism to multiple, even incompatible perspectives, without the insistence on unitary definitions of their fields, has given rise to a new hybrid discipline: feminist ecocriticism.

Ecologists use a remarkable range of methods and techniques to understand complex, inherently variable, and functionally diverse entities and processes across a staggering range of spatial, temporal and interactive scales. These multiple perspectives make ecology very different to the exemplar of science often presented by philosophers. In Philosophical Foundations for the Practices of Ecology, designed for graduate students and researchers, ecology is put into a new philosophical framework that engages with this inherent pluralism while still placing constraints on the ways that we can investigate and understand nature. The authors begin by exploring the sources of variety in the practice of ecology and how these have led to the current conceptual confusion. They argue that the solution is to adopt the approach of constrained perspectivism and go on to explore the ontological, metaphysical, and epistemological aspects of this position and how it can be used in ecological research and teaching.