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 book: 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.
Peter Stiling is a professor of biology at the University of South Florida at Tampa. He has taught classes in ecology, environmental science, and community ecology, and in 1995 he received a teaching award in recognition of classroom excellence in these areas. Dr. Soling obtained his Ph.D. from University College, Cardiff, Wales, and completed postdoctoral research at Florida State University. It was while he was teaching ecology at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad that the idea for this book was conceived. Dr. Stiling's research interests include plant-insect relationships, parasite-host relationships, biological control, restoration ecology, and the effects of elevated CO2 levels on native communities. He has published many scientific papers in journals such as Ecology, Oikos, and Oecologia and was an editor for Oecologia. His field research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Nature Conservancy.