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The first comprehensive environmental synthesis of the Caribbean region, written by eminent scholars of the topic.
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Islands have captured the imagination of scientists and the public for centuries—unique and rare environments, their isolation makes them natural laboratories for ecology and evolution. This authoritative, alphabetically arranged reference, featuring more than 200 succinct articles by leading scientists from around the world, provides broad coverage of all the island sciences. But what exactly is an island? The volume editors define it here as any discrete habitat isolated from other habitats by inhospitable surroundings. The Encyclopedia of Islands examines many such insular settings—oceanic and continental islands as well as places such as caves, mountaintops, and whale falls at the bottom of the ocean. This essential, one-stop resource, extensively illustrated with color photographs, clear maps, and graphics will introduce island science to a wide audience and spur further research on some of the planet's most fascinating habitats.
Winner, 2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title One morning in Miami Beach, an unexpected guest showed up in a luxury condominium complex’s parking garage: an octopus. The image quickly went viral. But the octopus—and the combination of infrastructure quirks and climate impacts that left it stranded—is more than a funny meme. It’s a potent symbol of the disruptions that a changing climate has already brought to our doorsteps and the ways we will have to adjust. Rob Verchick examines how we can manage the risks that we can no longer avoid, laying out our options as we face climate breakdown. Although reducing carbon dioxide emissions is essential, we need to adapt to address the damage...
This beautifully illustrated exploration of the diversity, anatomy, and evolution of dinosaur feeding adaptations is the first and only in-depth look at this crucial aspect of paleoecology. In An Illustrated Guide to Dinosaur Feeding Biology, experts Ali Nabavizadeh and David B. Weishampel bring dinosaurs to life on the page by exploring and illustrating their feeding adaptations. Whether dinosaurs were carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous, their evolution produced a multitude of specialized adaptations that helped shape their ecologies. Dinosaur skulls show a variety of bone and joint specializations ideal for withstanding stresses and strains induced by high bite forces with strong jaw ...
In prehistoric societies children comprised 40–65% of the population, yet by default, our ancestral landscapes are peopled by adults who hunt, gather, fish, knap tools, and make art. But these adults were also parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who had to make space physically, emotionally, intellectually, and cognitively for the infants, children, and adolescents around them. Growing Up in the Ice Age is a timely and evidence-based look at the lived lives of Paleolithic children and the communities of which they were a part. By rendering these ‘invisible’ children visible, readers will gain a new understanding of the Paleolithic period as a whole, and in doing so will learn how children have contributed to the biological and cultural entities we are today.
The natural world is infinitely complex and hierarchically structured, with smaller units forming the components of larger systems: genes are components genomes, cells are building blocks of tissues and organs, individuals are members of populations, which, in turn, are parts of species. In the face of such awe inspiring complexity, scientists need tools like the hierarchy theory of evolution, which provides a theoretical framework and an interdisciplinary research program that aims to understand the way complex biological systems work and evolve. The multidisciplinary approach looks at the structure of the myriad intricate interactions across levels of organization that range from molecules to the biosphere. Evolutionary Theory: A Hierarchical Perspective provides an introduction to the theory, which is currently driving a great deal of research in bioinformatics and evolutionary theory. Written by a diverse and renowned group of contributors, and edited by the founder of Hierachy Theory Niles Eldredge, this work will help make transparent the fundamental patterns driving living sytems.
Evolution on islands differs in a number of important ways from evolution on mainland areas. Over millions of years of isolation, exceptional and sometimes bizarre mammals evolved on islands, such as pig-sized elephants and hippos, giant rats and gorilla-sized lemurs that would have been formidable to their mainland ancestors. This timely and innovative book is the first to offer a much-needed synthesis of recent advances in the exciting field of the evolution and extinction of fossil insular placental mammals. It provides a comprehensive overview of current knowledge on fossil island mammals worldwide, ranging from the Oligocene to the onset of the Holocene. The book addresses evolutionary processes and key aspects of insular mammal biology, exemplified by a variety of fossil species. The authors discuss the human factor in past extinction events and loss of insular biodiversity. This accessible and richly illustrated textbook is written for graduate level students and professional researchers in evolutionary biology, palaeontology, biogeography, zoology, and ecology.
Policy makers and resource managers must make decisions that affect the resilience and sustainability of natural resources, including biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, these decisions are often based on evidence or theory derived from highly altered systems and over short time periods of low-magnitude environmental and climatic change. Because natural systems change and evolve across multiple timescales from instantaneous to millennial, long-term understanding of how past life has responded to perturbations can inform resource managers. By using these natural laboratories of the past, conservation paleobiology and paleoecology provide the framework necessary to anticipate and pla...
This is the first book to provide a systematic overview of social zooarchaeology, which takes a holistic view of human-animal relations in the past. Until recently, archaeological analysis of faunal evidence has primarily focused on the role of animals in the human diet and subsistence economy. This book, however, argues that animals have always played many more roles in human societies: as wealth, companions, spirit helpers, sacrificial victims, totems, centerpieces of feasts, objects of taboos, and more. These social factors are as significant as taphonomic processes in shaping animal bone assemblages. Nerissa Russell uses evidence derived from not only zooarchaeology, but also ethnography, history and classical studies, to suggest the range of human-animal relationships and to examine their importance in human society. Through exploring the significance of animals to ancient humans, this book provides a richer picture of past societies.