Ecology: Theories and Applications

by Peter D. Stiling, Stiling, Peter Stiling, Peter

Presents a comprehensive, yet concise and clear, overview of ecology—evolutionary, behavioral, population, community and applied. The Third Edition retains a broad scope and completely integrates the applied sections into the theories of ecology — showing how the theories are applied in the real world. Emphasizes critical thinking and problem solving. Discusses what is currently known about a topic as well as what is yet unknown—emphasizing that future study in the discipline can lead to important contributions. Completely new first chapter, introduction—Discusses the four main sections of the behavioral, population, community, and ecosystems ecology. Expanded coverage of behavioral and ecosystems ecology includes a new chapter which features sections on mating systems, sex ratios, habitat selection, dispersal and age structure. Includes discussions on energy flow; features a new, independent chapter for nutrient cycles; separate chapters on species richness, diversity, stability, succession and biogeography. Discusses non-equilibrium theories in coverage of stability and touches on cluster analysis and ordination in discussion of diversity. Broad discussion of evolutionary biology to put conservation and biodiversity in perspective. For ecolgists and environmental scientists.

Genres: Ecology, Reference

403 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1995

Reviews

[DrMohommad Lone]

wana like to download it

[Tina Kd · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very bad

[rubiscodisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this on sale at National Bookstore a few months back, I just took such a long time for me to finish because I've had a series of fieldworks this past couple of months. It was a nice experience reading a textbook I used to study back in school out of interest. Now, I'm appreciating it more, especially since I can now relate to some of the topics from my work experience. It's encouraged me to look into pursuing a career in community and ecosystem ecology as an option for the future.

I recommend people to read their old textbooks, I'm sure it will be a good experience for them as well. The next time I go to Cebu, I'm totally cracking open my other textbooks.

The book itself is well well written (I suppose? weird thing to say about a textbook). I like that when it talks about hypotheses or principles, it always cites experiments and the people who did them. It gives such a more hands-on approach to learning about the concept. It even has funny tidbits about debates between ecologists - the one on the link between diversity and stability was so totally "oooh, burn". Haha.

Some complaints about it is that it doesn't tackle the dynamics of specific biomes that well, so you'd probably have to go back to Smith and Smith for that. There also wasn't any ending chapter to tie it all up, it just stopped abruptly after nutrient dynamics. It didn't discuss modern ecological concerns and make it relevant to current issues. Well, I guess it discussed them per chapter topic, but I'd have liked a whole chapter on climate change, or pollution, or restoration ecology.

[Hiền Nguyễn]

hay