This widely anticipated revision of the groundbreaking book, Ecological Understanding, updates this crucial sourcebook of contemporary philosophical insights for practicing ecologists and graduate students in ecology and environmental studies. The second edition contains new ecological examples, an expanded array of conceptual diagrams and illustrations, new text boxes summarizing important points or defining key terms, and new reference to philosophical issues and controversies. Although the first edition was recognized for its clarity, this revision takes the opportunity to make the exposition of complex topics still clearer to readers without a philosophical background. Readers will gain an understanding of the goals of science, the structure of theory, the kinds of theory relevant to ecology, the way that theory changes, what constitutes objectivity in contemporary science, and the role of paradigms and frameworks for synthesis within ecology and in integration with other disciplines. Finally, how theory can inform and anchor the public use of ecological knowledge in civic debates is laid out. This new edition refines the understanding of how the structure and change of theory can improve the growth and application of one of the 21st century’s key sciences.

Ecological Understanding: The Nature of Theory and the Theory of Nature

Science & Math

Pickett, Steward T.A.

Kolasa, Jurek

Jones, Clive G.

Biological Sciences

Academic Press

Ecology is an historical science in which theories can be as difficult to test as they are to devise. This volume, intended for ecologists and evolutionary biologists, reviews ecological theories, and how they are generated, evaluated, and categorized. Synthesizing a vast and sometimes labyrinthine literature, this book is a useful entry into the scientific philosophy of ecology and natural history. The need for integration of the contributions to theory made by different disciplines is a central theme of this book. The authors demonstrate that only through such integration will advances in ecological theory be possible. Ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and other serious students of natural history will want this book.

A leading-edge guide to thinking about and planning for twenty-first-century cities in all their social, political, and ecological complexity The first “urban century” in history has arrived: a majority of the world’s population now resides in cities and their surrounding suburbs. Urban expansion marches on, and the planning and design of future cities requires attention to such diverse issues as human migration, public health, economic restructuring, water supply, climate and sea-level change, and much more. This important book draws on two decades of pioneering social and ecological studies in Baltimore to propose a new way to think about cities and their social, political, and ecological complexity that will apply in many different parts of the world. Readers will gain fresh perspectives on how to study, build, and manage cities in innovative and sustainable ways.

The Baltimore School of Urban Ecology: Space, Scale, and Time for the Study of Cities

Politics & Social Sciences

Burch Jr., William R.

Machlis, Gary E.

Cadenasso, Mary L.

Grove, J. Morgan

Sociology

Yale University Press

A new tool for mapping urban land cover that integrates design principles and ecological knowledge for understanding cities as complex, patchy and dynamic systems Using a new, hybrid approach to urban land cover classification as an impetus to bring ecologists and urban designers together, this atlas is a unique conceptual tool to describe and analyze cities as complex systems. It brings together over a decade of shared knowledge from the Baltimore Ecosystem Study to inspire ecologically motivated design practice. The atlas displays maps and tables depicting land cover classes and the relationships between them; information on how the specific cover arrangements evolved over time; and speculations on how they might change through design, disturbance, or succession. Rather than separating human-constructed spaces from predominantly biological and geological ones, this book integrates social and ecological structures and shows how this can contribute to the scholarship of ecology and the practice of design. Interdisciplinary and strikingly illustrated, the atlas is a new way to study, measure, and view cities with a more effective interaction of scientific understanding and design practice.

Patch Atlas: Integrating Design Practices and Ecological Knowledge for Cities as Complex Systems

Marshall, Victoria J.

McGrath, Brian P.

Social Sciences

This widely anticipated revision of the groundbreaking book, Ecological Understanding, updates this crucial sourcebook of contemporary philosophical insights for practicing ecologists and graduate students in ecology and environmental studies. The second edition contains new ecological examples, an expanded array of conceptual diagrams and illustrations, new text boxes summarizing important points or defining key terms, and new reference to philosophical issues and controversies. Although the first edition was recognized for its clarity, this revision takes the opportunity to make the exposition of complex topics still clearer to readers without a philosophical background. Readers will gain an understanding of the goals of science, the structure of theory, the kinds of theory relevant to ecology, the way that theory changes, what constitutes objectivity in contemporary science, and the role of paradigms and frameworks for synthesis within ecology and in integration with other disciplines. Finally, how theory can inform and anchor the public use of ecological knowledge in civic debates is laid out. This new edition refines the understanding of how the structure and change of theory can improve the growth and application of one of the 21st century's key sciences.

Much of what is considered conventional wisdom about succession is not as clear cut as it is generally believed. Yet, the importance of succession in ecology is undisputed since it offers a real insight into the dynamics and structure of all plant communities. Part monograph and part conceptual treatise, An Integrative Approach to Successional Dynamics presents a unifying conceptual framework for dynamic plant communities and uses a unique long-term data set to explore the utility of that framework. The fourteen chapters, each written in a nontechnical style and accompanied by numerous illustrations and examples, cover diverse aspects of succession, including community, population and disturbance dynamics, diversity, community assembly, heterogeneity, functional ecology and biological invasion. This unique text will be a great source of reference for researchers and graduate students in ecology and plant biology, as well as others with an interest in the subject.

An Integrative Approach to Successional Dynamics: Tempo and Mode of Vegetation Change

Meiners, Scott J.

Cambridge University Press

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