Ecology and Ecosystem Conservation

by Oswald J. Schmitz

Meeting today’s environmental challenges requires a new way of thinking about the intricate dependencies between humans and nature. Ecology and Ecosystem Conservation provides students and other readers with a basic understanding of the fundamental principles of ecological science and their applications, offering an essential overview of the way ecology can be used to devise strategies to conserve the health and functioning of ecosystems.

The book begins by exploring the need for ecological science in understanding current environmental issues and briefly discussing what ecology is and isn’t. Subsequent chapters address critical issues in conservation and show how ecological science can be applied to them. The book explores questions such • What is the role of ecological science in decision making?
• What factors govern the assembly of ecosystems and determine their response to various stressors?
• How does Earth’s climate system function and determine the distribution of life on Earth?
• What factors control the size of populations?
• How does fragmentation of the landscape affect the persistence of species on the landscape?
• How does biological diversity influence ecosystem processes? The book closes with a final chapter that addresses the need not only to understand ecological science, but to put that science into an ecosystem conservation ethics perspective.

Genres: School, Science

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 23, 2007

Reviews

[Sylvester · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty basic introduction to Ecology, which is really a fancy name to try to distinguish a sub-discipline in biology. It covers the stuff that I've learnt in high school biology classes, with some extra information on how to apply this discipline such as in the case of Lyme disease. The author failed to convince me that this is really a valid subject at all, the scope of application for this discipline is very limited.

[Mrinny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Except for the author regularly stating throughout the book that science is toothless and policymakers are decision-makers... I really enjoyed the book. I strongly believe and wish to show that sound science ought to pose a clear case for itself especially if variables from each pov are optimised for in the model. The book is a quick read and provides a Good overview with many examples (although many are from the USA).

[Daniel]

A real page-turner, I couldn't put it down!