{"id":1253,"date":"2016-02-17T21:35:51","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T10:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2016-02-17T21:35:51","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T10:35:51","slug":"essentials-of-ecology-4e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/?p=1253","title":{"rendered":"Essentials of Ecology. 4e."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"begon\"<\/a>Rating:<\/strong> \"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"★\"<\/p>\n

Michael Begon, Robert W Howarth and Colin R Townsend. 2014. Essential of Ecology. 4e. Wiley. ISBN978 0 470 90913 3.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

30 years ago, a text was produced which has become to be seen as the standard in ecological education. I doubt that its authors would have been aware of what they started although some of the key ones remain and new collaborators join in. As part of the pantheon of ecological texts stretching back into the early C20th, this set must be seen as the latest paradigm in the subject. The original text Ecology: from individuals to ecosystems<\/em> grew to become a solid text in its latest incarnation. Feeling that there was a need for an introductory text keeping the key points of the original an Essentials<\/em> version was produced. It’s the latest version that is reviewed here.<\/p>\n

For those who have seen the earlier versions, the basic structure is there but with updates in terms of case studies and illustrations and a focus on ecological principles in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Readers new to the text need to see how it is structured.<\/p>\n

The key idea remains – ecological discussion and concern is fine but needs to be set firmly in a systematic study of ecological principles. It seems obvious to any ecological educator but the rise of “eco-concern” has not, in my opinion, been matched with a concomitant rise in ecological understanding. This is where this text is invaluable.<\/p>\n

The text is divided into five parts. The first part offers a short and focussed introduction to ecology – what it is and how it works (and who does it). What is less usual, but very welcome, is the second chapter of that part which looks at evolutionary ecology and biogeography. The idea here is that to understand modern ecology and distributions you really need to understand how species evolve (and what is<\/em> a species anyway?) and how they move through and ever-changing physical environment. Part two focusses on the abiotic environment looking, respectively, at environmental conditions and biotic responses, and a brief overview of the global biomes. What is less usual is the treatment here of the oceans – seen not as one homogeneous world ocean\u00a0 but as a place as diverse as terrestrial systems. Part three moves on to look at populations starting with life cycles and population changes through birth and death to population movements and dispersal. These populations are not benign but interact both within and between species. Interspecific competition is a vital component of ecosystem functioning as is predation and disease. The basic equation stays the same (i.e. population dynamics) but it is crucial to understand not just the factors causing change but the impact of those factors. A final chapter in this section reviews molecular and evolutionary ecology, ushering in one of the big changes in ecological understanding in recent times.\u00a0 As the scale of study moves up, so part four examines ecosystems. The start must be the population which interacts to become the community which is mediated through competition for resources. The distribution of those resources give rise to varying population densities. Finally, it is crucial to consider that these changes described above also refer to movements of energy through the food web.<\/p>\n

The final part looks at applied ecology and the impact of humans on the natural environment. This aspect is important because if we are to attract people towards ecological understanding, it is crucial that they have the knowledge to debate these topics and that comes from an understanding of key principles. Three chapters make up this final section. First, there’s a discussion on the impact of human activity on biogeochemical cycles. It’s not just a question of use but of the scale of flow and the ecological impact of it. Conservation is the next topic which demonstrates how to alter ecosystems to create desired ranges of species (although it overlooks other species we have downplayed to achieve this situation!). A final chapter examines human population, food and disease. It’s interesting to see the choice here. Any three others could have been chosen but these seem to have the greatest impact upon our thinking.<\/p>\n

It is incredibly difficult to distil a complex body of knowledge into a small space but the authors seem to have done it. They have kept in the key ecological concepts but also removed anything that might seem extraneous (there’s their larger text for that!). They guide the beginner (for whom the book is aimed) by using summaries, questions and text boxes for focus points. Text boxes add detail without distracting from the text and these look at key developments in the subject, quantitative ecology and maths and, finally, a set of boxes looking at ‘Ecoconcerns – those issues about the natural environment that most worry people.<\/p>\n

Overall, this is a classic text and should be read by all those aiming to have a solid grounding in ecology. It’s one of the few must-buy texts!<\/p>\n

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Rating: Michael Begon, Robert W Howarth and Colin R Townsend. 2014. Essential of Ecology. 4e. Wiley. ISBN978 0 470 90913 3. 30 years ago, a text was produced which has become to be seen as the standard in ecological education. I doubt that its authors would have been aware of what they started although some of the key ones remain and new collaborators join in. As part of the pantheon of ecological texts stretching back into the early C20th, this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[331,202,83,329,45,34,330],"class_list":["post-1253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-applied-ecology","tag-biogeochemical-cycles","tag-communities","tag-ecological-resources","tag-ecology","tag-ecosystems","tag-populations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1254,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions\/1254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}