El Instituto Estadounidense de Ciencias Biologicas definio esta obra como la que ha convencido a un mayor numero de profesionales de dedicarse a la biologia organica y ambiental. En esta edicion, sus autores integran la ecologia evolutiva y de sistemas a.
Eugene Pleasants Odum was an American biologist at the University of Georgia known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology. He and his brother Howard T. Odum wrote the popular ecology textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology (1953).
Can't say I've read many other Ecology textbooks, but dated though this one is, it was still pretty readable for a textbook, introducing many core concepts of the discipline with clear examples and interesting diagrams. Odum seems to be more of a water ecosystem person, with what I found scant treatment of terrestrial biomes. The portions on human ecology make this book a very prescient piece of writing indeed, as it draws many analogies in nature with human societies that are far ahead of its time, and are more relevant today than ever.
This was my course book in first semester and it definitely changed the way I look at ecology (I found it pretty boring before). It's hard to read a book on environment and feel good because most of the text just elucidate how much we have screwed up with the environment. But this book just as the title suggests, teaches about the fundamentals of what is ecology and how it functions. Some of the text was even funny and some really worth pondering over a lot. An example of this would be the industrial production of ammonia (Haber-Bosch process) which is now seriously affecting the nitrogen cycle of the environment and whose consequences would make a great impact upon humanity in the long-run (once it was hailed as the best ever scientific contribution). Moreover, it explained concepts of ecology in a lucid and interesting way. A great ingenious and engaging text from one of the pioneers of Modern Ecology.