An increasing amount of usable space on our planet is crowded by humans. Whether we are using the space for permanent homes, vacation homes, travel accommodations, farming, public recreation, transportation, or office buildings, our chronic overuse of Earth's resources is pushing our ecosystem into uncharted territories. This has spurred many species extinctions, and we can expect the losses to continue to grow. Ecology of a Changed World outlines the importance of species conservation relative to human existence. The book breaks down ecological principles and explains six threats to biodiversity in terms anyone studying ecology, evolutionary biology, environmental science, or environmental justice will understand. Ecologist Trevor Price begins the book by breaking down population growth, food webs, species interaction, and other ecological principles. He draws on examples from agriculture, disease, fisheries, and societal growth throughout each chapter, offering insight into the relationships between demographic transitions, monetary exchanges, and ecosystems. Price focuses on six threats to biodiversity--climate change, overharvesting, pollution, habitat loss, invasive species, and disease--and offers the history, current status, and economic as well as environmental impacts of each of these. He ends the book with a rigorous review of the importance of species diversity, outlining the ways losses to our ecosystem will be a detriment to public health and global wealth.
Taking readers through competition, predation, and parasitism, Ecology of a Changed World helpfully traces what has occurred on our planet throughout history, why these things happened, and how we can use this information to determine and shape our future.
Chapter 1: The Changed World Chapter 2: Population Growth Chapter 3: Population Regulation Chapter 4: Interactions between Species: Competition Chapter 5: Predation and Food Webs Chapter 6: Parasites and Pathogens Chapter 7: Evolution and Disease Chapter 8: The Human Food Supply: Competition, Predation, and Parasitism Chapter 9: Food Security Chapter 10: Prediction Chapter 11: Human Population Growth Chapter 12: Growth of Wealth and Urbanization Chapter 13: Habitat Conversion Chapter 14: Economics of Habitat Conversion Chapter 15: Climate Crisis: History Chapter 16: Predictions of Future Climate and Its Effects Chapter 17: Pollution Chapter 18: Invasive Species Chapter 19: Introduced Disease Chapter 20: Harvesting on Land Chapter 21: Harvesting in the Ocean Chapter 22: Harvesting: Prospects Chapter 23: Species Chapter 24: Population Declines Chapter 25: Extinction Chapter 26: Species across Space Chapter 27: Island Biogeography and Reserve Design Chapter 28: Value of Species Appendix A: Estimation and Uncertainty Appendix B: Derivations References Index
Trevor Price is Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. He earned a PhD in ecology from the University of Michigan and spent seventeen years on the faculty at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Speciation in Birds (2007).
Reviews for Ecology of a Changed World
This book offers a treatise on ecology, focusing particularly on biodiversity...Recommended. All readers. * Choice *
