Discovering Evolutionary Ecology: Bringing Together Ecology and Evolution

by Peter J. Mayhew

A concise, rigorous, and readable introduction to evolutionary ecology, a field of questions united by the intermix of evolutionary and ecological knowledge. Although not designed as a textbook, the author's enthusiastic and accessible style will inspire students (both undergraduate and graduate) to use the book in conjunction with the primary literture and more extensive reviews of individual topics.

Genres: Science, Science Nature

215 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 2006

About the author

Peter Mayhew is a British biologist at the University of York in the United Kingdom. He is the lead author of a study showing a long-term association between global temperature and biodiversity, origination, and extinction in the fossil record. This study demonstrated that biodiversity tends to be relatively low during greenhouse phases in Earth history and that extinction rates (including mass extinctions) tend to be higher. On the basis of this work he was nominated as one of the "Great Britons of 2007". He is also author of a textbook on evolutionary ecology (from wikipedia)

Reviews

[Öykü · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yıldızın düşük olması genel beklentiyle ilgili zannedersem. Okurlar ya genel okuyucuya hitap etmesini ya da çalıştıkları spesifik alana dair akademik bir şeyler alabilmeyi beklemişler. Öncelikle ekoloji ve evrimle ilgili henüz okuma yapmamış, ilgilenmemiş kimseler için gerçekten çok da uygun olmayabilir, detaylar sıkıcı gelebilir. Ama benzer bir şekilde aslında derinlemesine inilen bir tema da yok. Genel olarak evrimsel ekolojinin nasıl çalışılabileceğine, iki alan arasında nasıl köprü kurulabileceğine dair bir yol haritası çıkarılmaya çalışılmış. Ben açıkçası çok beğendim, eko-evo dersi açacak bir hoca olsam bunu kaynak kitap yapabilirdim. O yüzden gönül rahatlığıyla tavsiye ediyorum, ancak bir şerh düşerek, yalnızca ilgilisine. Acaba ilgilenir miyim diye öylesine bakınmak içinse bunaltabilir (yorumlardan anladığım kadarıyla çoğunluk böyle hissetmiş).

[Buck Wilde · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was told it would not be a textbook. I was misled.
Real jargony, but I learned a bunch of words like limnetic and benthic. If I were a biologist, I'd ever get to use them.
Really dry book, I'm sure it would be very interesting to people doing ecology research. I was looking for more of an ecology primer, hoping to coast through on what I knew about evolution. First time I've ever seen evolution get math wedged into it. Yikes.

[Humayra Sullivan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a good textbook. In an effort to make things concise, a lot was left unexplained. Concepts were very poorly written and I found I only understood things AFTER a lecture was given. Definitely not recommended for those new to the subject. This book cannot be opened and "just read". You can really only understand it after someone else has explained it to you and then you're going back to skim.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for my comprehensive exams. I wouldn't call this a textbook so much as a primer on some ecological topics. One of my first thoughts while reading it was that the audience was very unclear. I would say this is probably a great book for a college freshman seminar on evolutionary ecology or for an upper-level AP course.