This volume takes readers on a journey through the earth's habitats and ecosystems. It explains how plants and animals are designed to survive, how they rely on the natural resources around them, and shows how they all, ultimately, depend on one another. An index and glossary make THE YOUNG OXFORD BOOK OF ECOLOGY an excellent reference. 138 superb color and 7 b&w photos and illustrations.

Prehistoric life presented in order of geological epochs.

Life on Earth can be viewed as a complex network of interactions between living organisms and their respective environments. By parsing the natural world into various ecosystems and biomes, the extent and significance of such interaction among species and between organisms and their natural habitats becomes abundantly clear. The study of ecology forms the heart of this engaging volume, which explores the formation of ecological communities and examines the biological diversity that forms the backbone of life on the planet.

A wide-ranging appraisal of environmental thought. It explores such topics as the history of ecology, radical science studies and ecology, the need for greater theoretical sophistication in ecocriticism, the dubious legacy of Thoreau, and the contradictions of contemporary nature writing.

According to virtually every business writer, we are in the midst of a new "information age," one that will revolutionize how workers work, how companies compete, perhaps even how thinkers think. And it is certainly true that Information Technology has become a giant industry. In America, more that 50% of all capital spending goes into IT, accounting for more than a third of the growth of the entire American economy in the last four years. Over the last decade, IT spending in the U.S. is estimated at 3 trillion dollars. And yet, by almost all accounts, IT hasn't worked all that well. Why is it that so many of the companies that have invested in these costly new technologies never saw the returns they had hoped for? And why do workers, even CEOs, find it so hard to adjust to new IT systems? In Information Ecology, Thomas Davenport proposes a revolutionary new way to look at information management, one that takes into account the total information environment within an organization. Arguing that the information that comes from computer systems may be considerably less valuable to managers than information that flows in from a variety of other sources, the author describes an approach that encompasses the company's entire information environment, the management of which he calls information ecology. Only when organizations are able to combine and integrate these diverse sources of information, and to take them to a higher level where information becomes knowledge, will they realize the full power of their information ecology. Thus, the author puts people, not technology, at the center of the information world. Information and knowledge are human creations, he points out, and we will never excel at managing them until we give people a primary role. Citing examples drawn from his own extensive research and consulting including such major firms as A.T. & T., American Express, Ford, General Electric, Hallmark, Hoffman La Roche, IBM, Polaroid, Pacific Bell, and Toshiba Davenport illuminates the critical components of information ecology, and at every step along the way, he provides a quick assessment survey for managers to see how their organization measures up. He discusses the importance of developing an overall strategy for information use; explores the infighting, jealousy over resources, and political battles that can frustrate information sharing; underscores the importance of looking at how people really use information (how they search for it, modify it, share it, hoard it, and even ignore it) and the kinds of information they want; describes the ideal information staff, who not only store and retrive information, but also prune, provide context, enhance style, and choose the right presentation medium (in an age of work overload, vital information must be presented compellingly so the appropriate people recognize and use it); examines how information management should be done on a day to day basis; and presents several alternatives to the machine engineering approach to structuring and modeling information. Davenport makes explicit what many managers already know in their gut: that useful information flow depends on people, not equipment. In Information Ecology he paves the way for all managers to build a more competitive, creative, practical information environment for their companies.

The natural world holds secrets under every rock and around every tree. If you've ever wondered what life is like through a microscope, telescope, or with the naked eye--you'll love this book! You will: Run with the antelope across the American plains and learn about the food chain. Climb with a monkey to the highest tree in the rainforest and discover how photosynthesis keeps leaves green. Sink to the bottom of the ocean to follow creatures who have adapted to life in total darkness Travel with a meteor at speeds up to 160,000 miles per hour. Burrow with the earthworms in your own backyard. Through it all, you'll find out how things synergize, regenerate, and evaporate--and lots more! And don't worry about the big words--they are all defined and explained with familiar examples in this fascinating trip through the natural world.

An exploration of the hidden history of camping in American life that connects a familiar recreational pastime to camps for functional needs and political purposes. Camping appears to be a simple proposition, a time-honored way of getting away from it all. Pack up the car and hit the road in search of a shady spot in the great outdoors. For a modest fee, reserve the basic infrastructure--a picnic table, a parking spot, and a place to build a fire. Pitch the tent and unroll the sleeping bags. Sit under the stars with friends or family and roast some marshmallows. This book reveals that, for all its appeal, the simplicity of camping is deceptive, its history and meanings far from obvious. Why do some Americans find pleasure in sleeping outside, particularly when so many others, past and present, have had to do so for reasons other than recreation? Never only a vacation choice, camping has been something people do out of dire necessity and as a tactic of political protest. Yet the dominant interpretation of camping as a modern recreational ideal has obscured the connections to these other roles. A closer look at the history of camping since the Civil War reveals a deeper significance of this American tradition and its links to core beliefs about nature and national belonging. Camping Grounds rediscovers unexpected and interwoven histories of sleeping outside. It uses extensive research to trace surprising links between veterans, tramps, John Muir, African American freedpeople, Indian communities, and early leisure campers in the nineteenth century; tin-can tourists, federal campground designers, Depression-era transients, family campers, backpacking enthusiasts, and political activists in the twentieth century; and the crisis of the unsheltered and the tent-based Occupy Movement in the twenty-first. These entwined stories show how Americans camp to claim a place in the American republic and why the outdoors is critical to how we relate to nature, the nation, and each other.

The information contained in this resource and activity book enhances children's knowledge and awareness of the living and non-living components of a pond, including the variety of life forms that can be found living on, under, and around the surface of a pond. Through observation and investigation, children will discover similarities, differences, and interactions among living things that inhabit a pond. Activities that emphasize plant and animal adaptations, interdependence, and food chains enable students to learn more about how living things survive in a still, freshwater ecosystem. Four transparencies (print books) or PowerPoint slides (eBooks) are included to engage students in discussion and reinforce the concepts presented in the book.

While the study of viral evolution has developed rapidly in the last 30 years, little attention has been directed toward linking the mechanisms of viral evolution to the epidemiological outcomes of these processes. This book intends to fill this gap by considering the patterns and processes of viral evolution at all its spatial and temporal scales.