Ecology: principles and applications

Abstract

This introductory, heavily-sectionalised text, aimed at UK sixth-form and first-year undergraduate levels, begins with an examination of the relationships of individual organisms with their environment, then moves along the scale of organisational complexity through autecology, populations, communities and ecosystems to biomes and world-scale biogeography. Interspersed are chapters which cover population dynamics, population regulation, ecological genetics, behavioural ecology, and sociobiology, the environment, habitats and niches, trophic levels, energy transfer and nutrient cycling (including comments on pollution), succession, co-evolution and conservation. Material providing case studies, historical review, theory and further detail are displayed in boxes. Each chapter possesses a summary and suggested books for further reading. -P.J.Jarvis