You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Preface 1: The Rain Forest Setting Robert B. Waide, Douglas P. Reagan. 2: Plants: The Food Base William T. Lawrence, Jr 3: Microorganisms D. Jean Lodge 4: Termites Elizabeth A. McMahan 5: Litter Invertebrates William J. Pfeiffer 6: Arboreal Invertebrates Rosser W. Garrison, Michael R. Willig. 7: Arboreal Arachnids William J. Pfeiffer 8: Amphibians Margaret M. Stewart, Lawrence L. Woolbright. 9: Anoline Lizards Douglas P. Reagan 10: Nonanoline Reptiles Richard Thomas, Ava Gaa Kessler. 11: Birds Robert B. Waide 12: Mammals Michael R. Willig, Michael R. Gannon. 13: The Stream Community Alan P. Covich, William H. McDowell. 14: The Community Food Web: Major Properties and Patterns of Organization Douglas P. Reagan, Gerardo R. Camilo, Robert B. Waide. Glossary Contributors Bibliography Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
For most of us the word "desert" conjures up images of barren wasteland, vast, dry stretches inimical to life. But for a great array of creatures, perhaps even more plentiful than those who inhabit tropical rainforests, the desert is a haven and a home. Travel with Michael Mares into the deserts of Argentina, Iran, Egypt, and the American Southwest and you will encounter a rich and memorable variety of these small, tenacious animals, many of them first discovered by Mares in areas never before studied. Accompanying Mares on his forays into these hostile habitats, we observe the remarkable behavioral, physiological, and ecological adaptations that have allowed such little-known species of rod...
This book explains how to foresee and manage ecosystem changes in the Luquillo Mountains in Puerto Rico, by looking at underlying causes and effects. The lessons from the abiotic and biotic environments, populations, and ecosystems in this region apply to analogous forest biomes in Central and South America, as well as around the world.
This book explores the interface of bodies and religion by investigating the impacts human-induced global warming will have on the embodied and performed practices of religion in ecologies of place. By utilizing analytical insights from religion and nature theory, posthumanism, queer ecologies, ecological animisms, indigenous knowledges, material feminisms, and performance studies the book advocates for a need to update how religious studies theorizes bodies and religion. It does so by in the first half of the book advocating for religious studies as a field, and the academy as a whole, to take the ongoing and deleterious future impacts of climate change seriously--to re-member that those la...
This book summarizes the key scientific outcomes of the Horizon 2020 research project TULIPP: Towards Ubiquitous Low-power Image Processing Platforms. The main focus lies on the development of high-performance, energy-efficient embedded systems for the growing range of increasingly complex image processing applications. The holistic TULIPP approach is described in the book, which addresses hardware platforms, programming tools and embedded operating systems. Several of the results are available as open-source hardware/software for the community. The results are evaluated with several use cases taken from real-world applications in key domains such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), robotics, space and medicine. Discusses the development of high-performance, energy-efficient embedded systems for the growing range of increasingly complex image processing applications; Covers the hardware architecture of embedded image processing systems, novel methods, tools and libraries for programming those systems as well as embedded operating systems to manage those systems; Demonstrates results with several challenging applications, such as medical systems, robotics, drones and automotive.
Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson's The Theory of Island Biogeography, first published by Princeton in 1967, is one of the most influential books on ecology and evolution to appear in the past half century. By developing a general mathematical theory to explain a crucial ecological problem--the regulation of species diversity in island populations--the book transformed the science of biogeography and ecology as a whole. In The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited, some of today's most prominent biologists assess the continuing impact of MacArthur and Wilson's book four decades after its publication. Following an opening chapter in which Wilson reflects on island biogeography in the 1960s, fifteen chapters evaluate and demonstrate how the field has extended and confirmed--as well as challenged and modified--MacArthur and Wilson's original ideas. Providing a broad picture of the fundamental ways in which the science of island biogeography has been shaped by MacArthur and Wilson's landmark work, The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited also points the way toward exciting future research.
This is the second of two high-level, data-rich volumes from the massive Smithsonian/MAB Biological Diversity Program documenting the latest findings on forest biodiversity. In original contributions, some three hundred scientists from over forty countries discuss socioeconomic aspects, ecological monitoring and assessment, forest dynamics, growth trends, dry forests, species richness of woody regeneration and of vascular plants, hurricane impact, tropical cloud forests, Landsat-TM satellite mapping, and quantitative ethnobotany. The book covers first the research and monitoring methodologies for the New World and then the results of individual research and integrated studies on all aspects of forest biodiversity in North and South America and the Caribbean.
Andrea Mohr's CV is an eye-opening read: drug runner, hostess, money launderer, drug dealer and importer amongst other things. Alongside this was a glamorous life filled with travel, movie stars and easy money. But the dark side of drugs and addiction eventually saw her serve five years jail for importing 5.5 kilograms of cocaine into Australia. Andrea was sent to Deer Park, a maximum security women's prison, a violent, corrupt, mismanaged facility where there were more drugs inside than outside, and where one of her fellow inmates nicknamed her Pixie. In Pixie she looks back on her involvement in drug smuggling that took her to exotic locations around the world including Columbia, the USA, Thailand and Indonesia. Andrea introduces us to the people she meets and gives us a rare insight into a criminal world few know. It's a frank and shockingly truthful account of a life filled with dizzying highs - with terrible consequences. Her book is a blend of vivid dialogue, unforgettable characters, amazing adventures and evocations of the violence of prison life. But as a sub-text Andrea explores police corruption and the outcomes of justice and punishment.
Despite claims to the contrary, the science of ecology has a long history of building theories. Many ecological theories are mathematical, computational, or statistical, though, and rarely have attempts been made to organize or extrapolate these models into broader theories. The Theory of Ecology brings together some of the most respected and creative theoretical ecologists of this era to advance a comprehensive, conceptual articulation of ecological theories. The contributors cover a wide range of topics, from ecological niche theory to population dynamic theory to island biogeography theory. Collectively, the chapters ably demonstrate how theory in ecology accounts for observations about the natural world and how models provide predictive understandings. It organizes these models into constitutive domains that highlight the strengths and weaknesses of ecological understanding. This book is a milestone in ecological theory and is certain to motivate future empirical and theoretical work in one of the most exciting and active domains of the life sciences.
This book focuses on central themes related to the conservation of bats. It details their response to land-use change and management practices, intensified urbanization and roost disturbance and loss. Increasing interactions between humans and bats as a result of hunting, disease relationships, occupation of human dwellings, and conflict over fruit crops are explored in depth. Finally, contributors highlight the roles that taxonomy, conservation networks and conservation psychology have to play in conserving this imperilled but vital taxon. With over 1300 species, bats are the second largest order of mammals, yet as the Anthropocene dawns, bat populations around the world are in decline. Greater understanding of the anthropogenic drivers of this decline and exploration of possible mitigation measures are urgently needed if we are to retain global bat diversity in the coming decades. This book brings together teams of international experts to provide a global review of current understanding and recommend directions for future research and mitigation.