These volumes represent a major turning point in our understanding of marsupial evolution. For the first time since Ride's review of 1964, the whole subject of the evolutionary relationships of marsupials is thoroughly overhauled. In the more than 50 contributions by 38 American and Australian authors, five new families and many new genera and species of American and Australian marsupials are described for the first time. Some of these descriptions represent the results of up to 15 years of collection, preparation and study. Many represent the "births" of extraordinarily distinctive types of marsupials that lived 55,000,000 years ago in Brazil, 15,000,000 years ago in the Miocene forests of what is now the Simpson Desert, approximately 15,000,000 years ago in dense rainforests of what are now the steamy limestone plateaus of north Queensland and 4,500,000 years ago in the cool wet rainforests of western Victoria. While some give us important clues about how modern faunas evolved, others represent bizarre experiments that faded from the world millions of years before Man evolved.

Possums and Opossums: Studies in Evolution

Surrey Beatty & Sons

Uncovering Australia's Dreamtime. The Fossil Deposits of Riversleigh: An Extraordinary Australian discovery

Science & Math

M. Archer

S. Hand

H. Godthelp

Biological Sciences

Ecology of reptiles (Australian ecology series)

Heatwole, Harold

Kangaroos, wallabies, and rat-kangaroos

Unknown, Author

Gordon C Grigg

The basic components of a rainforest are the various species of plants which , with the fauna constitute the ongoing ecosystem. In New South Wales rainforests, there are 57 recognized plant grouping or suballiances, which can be referred to 13 alliances. The alliances in turn can be identified as belonging to one of the four subformations.  For each of these suballiances, structure, physiognomy, location and interrelationships with other suballiances are discussed.   Species lists for representative locations of each suballiance are provided on microfiche as an appendix, appropriate notation is included in the text.   All Subtropical dry, warm temperate and cool temperate rainforests in New South Wales are carefully considered in detail in this book.   Chapters in volume 2: 1. Subtropical Rainforest; 2. Dry Rainforest; 3. Warm Temperate Rainforest; 4. Cool Temperate Rainforest

Australian Rainforests in New South Wales, Vol. 2, Including Microfiche

Alex Floyd

World-wide interest and concern about rainforests is reflectee in the spate of recent publications on the subject. Objective, systematic approaches to the description and conservation of rainforests have developed rapidly during the 1980s. This book comprises 21 refereed papers reporting aspects of a three-year study of the ecology of a remote, poorly known region of Western Australia. Prior to this study, little was known about the 1,500+ patches of "raingreen forest" that occur in the region. 
 Not only does the book communicate the beauty of these rainforests, it also emphasizes their intricacy. The ecological study was carried out by fifteen Australian scientists, specialists in remote sensing, botany, zoology, soils, conservation ecology and biogegraphy. They used state-of-the-art techniques of sampling and analysis. The results are interpreted into the available scientific literature, current at December 1989. The book culminates in an integrated quantitative analysis of the ecology, biogeography and conservation status of the region's rainforest communities. The book is also intended as a source reference for future research, monitoring and management. Thus, it includes comprehensive lists of plants, birds and land snails for the 95 rainforest patches that were sampled during the course of the ecological survey, and inventories of spiders, ants, earthworms, beetles, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals for a representative sub-set of these patches. Aboriginal names are listed for many of the plants and animals. Soils, climatic and landform data are provided for each patch, and analysed in relation to biological patterns. With these data, professional users can re-interpret its findings for themselves, or make quantitative comparisons with their own data.

Kimberley Rainforests of Australia

A cabinet of reed-warblers: A monograph dealing with the acrocephaline warblers of the world, and embracing all known species and sub-species

L. M. Courtney-Haines

Healing the Planet

Ehrlich & Ehrlich

The extraordinary biological diversity of islands of the south-west Pacific nations is under severe threat from an array of processes, including, but not limited to, habitat fragmentation, degradation of marine and terrestrial environments, introduced predators, parasites and weeds, and direct exploitation. The region already has an unenviable record of extinctions attributed to human activity and this seems set to continue. The emerging discipline of Conservation Biology can counter these problems but its potential is far from realized, partly because of a communication gap between research oriented biologists and resource managers on the one hand and between scientists and the public on the other.  The goal of this book is to make our conservation efforts more effective. To achieve this, a review of the major problems facing the regional biotas is carried out and ways in which conservation research can be made more efficient are suggested.

Conservation Biology in Australia and Oceania

Business & Money

Economics

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