TY - BOOK AU - Townsend,Colin R. AU - Harper,John L. AU - Begon,Michael TI - Essentials of ecology SN - 9780632043484 U1 - 574.5 PY - 2000/// CY - Malden, Mass. PB - Blackwell Science KW - Ecology N1 - Included Index; Introduction -- Ecology and how to do it -- Introduction -- Scales, diversity and rigor -- Ecology in practice -- Ecology's evolutionary backdrop -- Introduction -- Evolution by natural selection -- Evolution within species -- The ecology of speciation -- Effects of climatic change on the evolution and distribution of species -- Effects of continental drift on the ecology of evolution -- Interpreting the results of evolution: convergents and parallels -- Conditions and Resources -- Physical conditions and the availability of resources -- Introduction -- Environmental conditions -- Plant resources -- Animals and their resources -- Effects of intraspecific competition for resources -- Conditions, resources and the ecological niche -- Conditions, resources and the world's communities -- Introduction -- Geographic patterns at large and small scales -- Temporal patterns in conditions and resources -- Terrestrial biomes -- Aquatic environments -- Individuals, Populations, Communities and Ecosystems -- Birth, death and movement -- Introduction -- Life cycles -- Monitoring birth and death: life tables and fecundity schedules -- Dispersal and migration -- The impact of intraspecific competition on populations -- Life history patterns -- Interspecific competition -- Introduction -- Ecological effects of interspecific competition -- Evolutionary effects of interspecific competition -- Interspecific competition and community structure -- How significant is interspecific competition in practice -- Introduction -- Prey fitness and abundance -- The subtleties of predation -- Predator behavior: foraging and transmission -- Population dynamics of predation -- Predation and community structure -- Evolutionary ecology -- Introduction -- Molecular ecology: differentiation within and between species -- Coevolutionary arms races -- Mutualistic interactions -- From populations to communities -- Introduction -- Multiple determinants of the dynamics of populations -- Dispersal, patches and metapopulation dynamics -- Temporal patterns in community composition -- Food webs -- Patterns in species richness -- Introduction -- A simple model of species richness -- Spatially varying factors that influence species richness -- Temporally varying factors that influence species richness -- Gradients of species richness -- Patterns in taxon richness in the fossil record -- Appraisal of patterns in species richness -- The flux of energy and matter through ecosystems -- Introduction -- Primary productivity -- The fate of primary productivity -- The process of decomposition -- The flux of matter through ecosystems -- Global biogeochemical cycles -- Applied Issues in Ecology -- Sustainability -- Introduction -- The human population 'problem' -- Harvesting living resources from the wild -- The farming of monocultures -- Pest control -- Integrated farming systems -- Forecasting agriculturally driven global environmental change -- Habitat degradation -- Introduction -- Degradation via cultivation -- Power generation and its diverse effects -- Degradation in urban and industrial landscapes -- Maintenance and restoration of ecosystem services -- Conservation -- Introduction -- Threats to biodiversity -- Conservation in practice -- Conservation in a changing world -- Finale N2 - Presenting a balanced overview of ecology, with examples drawn from terrestrial and aquatic environments and from a variety of organism types, this work outlines the major tenets of ecology in a concise and simplified manner ER -