Biophysical Ecology

This classic and highly influential text presents a uniquely comprehensive view of the field of biophysical ecology. In its analytical interpretation of the ecological responses of plants and animals to their environments, it draws upon studies of energy exchange, gas exchange, and chemical kinetics. The first four chapters offer a preliminary treatment of the applications of biophysical ecology, discussing energy and energy budgets and their applications to plants and animals, and defining radiation laws and units. Succeeding chapters concern the physical environment, covering the topics of radiation, convection, conduction, and evaporation. The spectral properties of radiation and matter are reviewed, along with the geometrical, instantaneous, daily, and annual amounts of both shortwave and longwave radiation. The book concludes with more elaborate analytical methods for the study of photosynthesis in plants and energy budgets in animals, in addition to animal and plant temperature responses. This text will prove of value to students and environmental researchers from a variety of fields, particularly ecology, agronomy, forestry, botany, and zoology.

A symposium on biophysical ecology was held at The University of Michigan Biological Station on Douglas Lake August 20-24, 1973. Biophysical ecology is an approach to ecology which uses fundamental principles of physics and chemistry along with mathematics as a tool to understand the interactions between organisms and their environment. It is fundamentally a mechanistic approach to ecology, and as such, it is amenable to theoretical modeling. A theoretical model applied to an organism and its interactions with its environ ment should include all the significant environmental factors, organism properties, and the mechanisms that connect these things together in an appropriate organism response. The purpose of a theoretical model is to use it to explain observed facts and to make predictions beyond the realm of observation which can be verified or denied by further observation. If the predictions are confirmed, the model must be reasonably complete except for second or third-order refinements. If the pre dictions are denied by further observation, one must go back to the basic ideas that entered the model and decide what has been overlooked or even what has been included that perhaps should not have been. Theoretical modeling must always have recourse to experiment in the laboratory and observation in the field. For plants, a theoretical model might be formulated to explain the manner and magnitude by which various environmental factors affect leaf temperature.

Temperature affects everything. It influences all aspects of the physical environment and governs any process that involves a flow of energy, setting boundaries on what an organism can or cannot do. This novel textbook reveals the key principles behind the complex relationship between organisms and temperature, namely the science of thermal ecology. It starts by providing a rigorous framework for understanding the flow of energy in and out of the organism, before describing the influence of temperature on what organisms can do and how fast they can do it. With these fundamental principles covered, the bulk of the book explores thermal ecology itself, incorporating the important extra dimension of interactions with other organisms. An entire chapter is devoted to the crucially important subject of how organisms are responding to climate change. Indeed, the threat of rapid climatic change on a global scale is a stark reminder of the challenges that remain for evolutionary thermal biologists, and adds a sense of urgency to this book's mission.

There isprobably no more appropriate location to hold a course on mathematical ecology than Italy, the countryofVito Volterra, a founding father ofthe subject. The Trieste 1982Autumn Course on Mathematical Ecology consisted of four weeksofvery concentrated scholasticism and aestheticism. The first weeks were devoted to fundamentals and principles ofmathematicalecology. A nucleusofthe material from the lectures presented during this period constitutes this book. The final week and a half of the Course was apportioned to the Trieste Research Conference on Mathematical Ecology whose proceedings have been published as Volume 54, Lecture Notes in Biomathematics, Springer-Verlag. The objectivesofthe first portionofthe course wereambitious and, probably, unattainable. Basic principles of the areas of physiological, population, com munitY, and ecosystem ecology that have solid ecological and mathematical foundations were to be presented. Classical terminology was to be introduced, important fundamental topics were to be developed, some past and some current problems of interest were to be presented, and directions for possible research were to be provided. Due to time constraints, the coverage could not be encyclopedic;many areas covered already have merited treatises of book length. Consequently, preliminary foundation material was covered in some detail, but subject overviewsand area syntheseswerepresented when research frontiers were being discussed. These lecture notes reflect this course philosophy.

This partially annotated bibliography contains the first 1000 references from a computerized file of literature on the global ecological implications of carbon cycles and climatic changes. Many early citations originated from the Biogeochemical Ecological Information Center established at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1968 and from profiles of computerized files such as Government Research Abstracts (GRA) and Biological Abstracts (BA). Later citations have been extracted from the open literature through 1978 and early 1979, from government reports and impact statements, and from profiles of GRA, BA, and the Energy Data Base of the Department of Energy Technical Information Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The subject categories covered by this bibliography may be divided into two main topics: carbon cycling and climate system analysis. Volume I contains an introduction and overview. Volume 2 contains an alphabetical (by author) listing of citations. Volume 3 provides indexes for author, organization (corporate authority), keywords (or free index terms), taxonomic category, subject category, Chemical Abstracts codes, Biological Abstracts codes (crosscode), and COSATI/Weekly Government Abstracts codes concentrated with permuted title words.