Preserving the living earth
By: Christine Petersen
Series: Environment at risk
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781608704804
Description: "Provides comprehensive information on Earth's various ecosystems, their importance, and the environmental threats place upon them"--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: our place in nature: intro to ecosystems (narrative example); characteristics of life; biotic and abiotic factors; human adaptations; environmental threats; title: the variety of life: classification and nomenclature; three domains of life; defining biodiversity (with examples); overexploitation, climate change; title: energy and matter in ecosystems: levels of ecosystem organization; photosynthesis and cellular respiration; food chains, energy pyramids, effects of introduced species and removal of predators; garbage/plastic pollution in the oceans; nutrient cycles and runoff pollution; title: ecosystem interactions: predator-prey interactions and adaptations; symbiosis and parasites in salmons; adaptations to the physical environment migration, metabolic strategies (torpor, hibernation, plant dormancy), climate change and phenology; title: a changing world: Nicolaus steno fossils and sedimentary rock formations; Hutton and Lyell uniformitarianism; William Smith and comparative ages of fossils; Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle and theory of natural selection (with Wallace); Mendel's heredity experiments; types of speciation; mass extinction; ecological succession; introduced species; title: everything has limits: Malthus' exponential growth; population density; carrying capacity and limiting factors; reproductive strategies; boom-and-bust cycles; resource partitioning; competitive exclusion; specialists vs. generalists; reducing our impact.