"A bold and successful attempt to illustrate the theoretical foundations of all of the subdisciplines of ecology, including basic and applied, and extending through biophysical, population, community, and ecosystem ecology. Encyclopedia of Theoretical Ecology is a compendium of clear and concise essays by the intellectual leaders across this vast breadth of knowledge."--Harold Mooney, Stanford University "A remarkable and indispensable reference work that also is flexible enough to provide essential readings for a wide variety of courses. A masterful collection of authoritative papers that convey the rich and fundamental nature of modern theoretical ecology."--Simon A. Levin, Princeton University "Theoretical ecologists exercise their imaginations to make sense of the astounding complexity of both real and possible ecosystems. Imagining a real or possible topic left out of the Encyclopedia of Theoretical Ecology has proven just as challenging. This comprehensive compendium demonstrates that theoretical ecology has become a mature science, and the volume will serve as the foundation for future creativity in this area."--Fred Adler, University of Utah "The editors have assembled an outstanding group of contributors who are a great match for their topics. Sometimes the author is a key, authoritative figure in a field; and at other times, the author has enough distance to convey all sides of a subject. The next time you need to introduce ecology students to a theoretical topic, you'll be glad to have this encyclopedia on your bookshelf."--Stephen Ellner, Cornell University “Everything you wanted to know about theoretical ecology, and much that you didn’t know you needed to know but will now! Alan Hastings and Louis Gross have done us a great service by bringing together in very accessible form a huge amount of information about a broad, complicated, and expanding field.”--Daniel Simberloff, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Theoretical Ecology: concepts and applications continues the authoritative and established sequence of theoretical ecology books initiated by Robert M. May which helped pave the way for ecology to become a more robust theoretical science, encouraging the modern biologist to better understand the mathematics behind their theories. This latest instalment builds on the legacy of its predecessors with a completely new set of contributions. Rather than placing emphasis on the historical ideas in theoretical ecology, the Editors have encouraged each contribution to: synthesize historical theoretical ideas within modern frameworks that have emerged in the last 10-20 years (e.g. bridging population interactions to whole food webs); describe novel theory that has emerged in the last 20 years from historical empirical areas (e.g. macro-ecology); and finally to cover the rapidly expanding area of theoretical ecological applications (e.g. disease theory and global change theory). The result is a forward-looking synthesis that will help guide the field through a further decade of discovery and development. It is written for upper level undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers seeking synthesis and the state of the art in growing areas of interest in theoretical ecology, genetics, evolutionary ecology, and mathematical biology.

This major reference is an overview of the current state of theoretical ecology through a series of topical entries centered on both ecological and statistical themes. Coverage ranges across scales—from the physiological, to populations, landscapes, and ecosystems. Entries provide an introduction to broad fields such as Applied Ecology, Behavioral Ecology, Computational Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology, Epidemiology and Epidemic Modeling, Population Ecology, Spatial Ecology and Statistics in Ecology. Others provide greater specificity and depth, including discussions on the Allee effect, ordinary differential equations, and ecosystem services. Descriptions of modern statistical and modeling approaches and how they contributed to advances in theoretical ecology are also included. Succinct, uncompromising, and authoritative—a "must have" for those interested in the use of theory in the ecological sciences.

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The cycling of elements such as carbon and nitrogen is of central importance in ecology, particularly when humans are causing changes to element cycles on a global scale. In this 1996 book a rigorous mathematical framework is developed to model how element cycles operate and interact in plants and soils, forming the foundations of a new ecosystem theory. From a few basic equations, powerful predictions can be generated covering a wide range of ecological phenomena related to element cycling. These predictions are tested extensively against field and laboratory studies of agricultural and forest ecosystems. This work will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in theoretical ecology, soil science, forestry and biogeochemistry.

Human Ecology: A Theoretical Essay, by Amos Hawley, presents for the first time a unified theory of human ecology by a scholar whose name is virtually synonymous with the discipline. Focused on the interaction between society and environment, human ecology is an attempt to deal holistically with the phenomenon of human organization. Beginning in the first quarter of the century, sociologists such as Park, Burgess, and McKenzie developed the study of human ecology to account for the dynamics of change in American cities. Over time, theorists have reached beyond the boundaries of sociology, drawing on the findings of economics, political science, anthropology, and bioecology, to understand the relationship of human beings to their environment. Hawley has successfully integrated the scattered theses of this wide-ranging discipline into a schematic whole. The early human ecologists seized on the analogy of plant communities as a way of understanding urban communities. Hawley here maintains that the most important contribution to human ecology of the lexicons of plant and animal ecologies is the perspective of collective life as an adaptive process consisting in an interaction of environment, population, and organization. From the adaptive profess, he argues, emerges the ecosystem, a concept that serves as a common denominator for bioecology and human ecology. Hawley has codified the theory of human ecology by a set of deductive hypotheses that establish its claims to coherence and comprehensiveness. His model charts a synthesis of ecological concepts ranging from adaptation and equilibrium through growth in temporal and spatial dimensions to convergence and openness. The essay underscores the critical importance of transportation and communication technology to the shaping of the human ecological system. Human Ecology brings concision and elegance to this holistic perspective and will serve as a point of reference and orientation for anyone interested in the powers and scope of the ecological approach.

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.

Encyclopedia of Ecology, Second Edition, Four Volume Set continues the acclaimed work of the previous edition published in 2008. It covers all scales of biological organization, from organisms, to populations, to communities and ecosystems. Laboratory, field, simulation modelling, and theoretical approaches are presented to show how living systems sustain structure and function in space and time. New areas of focus include micro- and macro scales, molecular and genetic ecology, and global ecology (e.g., climate change, earth transformations, ecosystem services, and the food-water-energy nexus) are included. In addition, new, international experts in ecology contribute on a variety of topics. Offers the most broad-ranging and comprehensive resource available in the field of ecology Provides foundational content and suggests further reading Incorporates the expertise of over 500 outstanding investigators in the field of ecology, including top young scientists with both research and teaching experience Includes multimedia resources, such as an Interactive Map Viewer and links to a CSDMS (Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System), an open-source platform for modelers to share and link models dealing with earth system processes