This book addresses an important problem in ecology: how are communities assembled from species pools? This pressing question underlies a broad array of practical problems in ecology and environmental science, including restoration of damaged landscapes, management of protected areas, and protection of threatened species. This book presents a simple logical structure for ecological assembly and…
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Discourse about water and power in the modern era have largely focused on human power over water: who gets to own and control a limited resource that has incredible economic potential. As a result, discussion of water, even in the humanities, has traditionally focused on fresh water for human use. Today, cl…
Forests must be measured if they are to be managed and conserved properly. This book describes the essential principles of modern forest measurement, whether using simple hand-held equipment or sophisticated satellite imagery. It particularly focuses on measuring forest biomass over large forest areas, a key aspect of climate change studies, as well as the volumes of wood that are commercially …
This new book is the first to make logical and important connections between trapping and foraging ecology. It develops and describes—both verbally and mathematically--the underlying principles that determine and define trap-organism interactions. More important, it goes on to explain and illustrate how these principles and relationships can be used to estimate absolute population densities i…
This book demonstrates how the primate hand combines both primitive and novel morphology, both general function with specialization, and both a remarkable degree of diversity within some clades and yet general similarity across many others. Across the chapters, different authors have addressed a variety of specific questions and provided their perspectives, but all explore the main themes descr…
With fascinating, spectacularly beautiful images, the book piques readers’ curiosity about the diversity of visual organs. This book is the result of a dual approach – scientific as well as aesthetic. The compelling images are accompanied by an easy-to-read, understandable text, aimed at both scientists and the educated public, and generally anyone interested in the beauty of nature. Thanks…
Large terrestrial mammalian herbivores play critical roles in ecosystems by acting as regulators of energy and nutrient cycles, modulators of plant community composition and grassland-woodland transitions, agents of seed dispersal, and as prey for large carnivores. Though large herbivores represent a prominent component of mammalian assemblages throughout South and Southeast Asia, little is kno…
The collection of chapters in this book present the concept of matched filters: response characteristics “matching” the characteristics of crucially important sensory inputs, which allows detection of vital sensory stimuli while sensory inputs not necessary for the survival of the animal tend to be filtered out, or sacrificed. The individual contributions discuss that the evolution of sensi…
This book presents a broad overview of the current state of knowledge regarding the Red Sea, from its geological formation and oceanographic development to the environmental influences on its ecology and the changes it is experiencing due to the rapid development of its coastlines and role as one of the world’s major transport routes. The book gathers invited contributions from researchers wi…
This volume focuses on those instances when benign and even beneficial relationships between microbes and their hosts opportunistically change and become detrimental toward the host. It examines the triggering events which can factor into these changes, such as reduction in the host’s capacity for mounting an effective defensive response due to nutritional deprivation, coinfections and seemi…