Homage To Ramon Margalef Or Why There Is Such Pleasure In Studying Nature

When a scientific journal like "Oecologia Aquatica" reaches its tenth issue, it is perhaps not an occasion for extraordinary celebration. However, if it turn out that this coincides with a series of unusual circunstances, then the perspective changes somewhat. Moreover, if the editors hasten to confess that this modest milestone of issue na 10 was really taken as an excuse to pay tribute to Professor Ramon Margalef, who was the founder, the first director and the driving force behind the journal, we can be forgiven for waiting to celebrate.

In Habitats and Ecological Communities of Indiana, leading experts assess the health and diversity of Indiana's eight wildlife habitats, providing detailed analysis, data-generated maps, color photographs, and complete lists of flora and fauna. This groundbreaking reference details the state's forests, grasslands, wetlands, aquatic systems, barren lands, and subterranean systems, and describes the nature and impact of two man-made habitats—agricultural and developed lands. The book considers extirpated and endangered species alongside invasives and exotics, and evaluates floral and faunal distribution at century intervals to chart ecological change.

This book is the outcome of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "The Eastern Mediterranean as a laboratory basin for the assessment of contrasting ecosystems" that was held in Kiev, Ukraine, March 23-27, 1998. The scientific rationale of the workshop can be summarized as follows. The Eastern Mediterranean is the most nutrient impoverished and oligotrophic large water body known. There is a well-defined eastward trend in nutrient ratios over the entire Mediterranean that starts at the Gibraltar Straits and, through the western basin, proceeds to the Ionian and Levantine Seas. Supply of nutrients to the entire Mediterranean is limited by inputs from the North Atlantic and various river systems along the sea. The unique feature of the Mediterranean is the presence of an eastward longitudinal trend in available nitrate/phosphate ratios. This apparently induces a west-to-east variation in the structure of the pelagic food web and trophic interactions. In this context the Mediterranean, and in particular its Eastern basin, provides probably a unique platform to explore the hypotheses related to the suggested phosphate-limitation on production and to the shift between "microbial" and "classical" modes of operation of the photic food web. The major exception of the overall oligotrophic nature of the Eastern Mediterranean is the highly eutrophic system of the Northern Adriatic Sea. Here, during the last two decades the discharges of the northern rivers (especially of the Po), together with municipal sewage, have led to a very marked increase of nutrients and subsequent imponent eutrophication events.

Advances in Marine Biology, Volume 89 updates on many topics that will appeal to postgraduates and researchers in marine biology, fisheries science, ecology, zoology and biological oceanography. Chapters in this new release include Bio-concretions of submarine caves and/or on resting stages from plankton and the Resurrection Ecology, Shallow subtidal rocky reefs of the Mediterranean, From an economic crisis to a pandemic crisis: The need for accurate marine monitoring data to take informed management decisions, Backcasting vs. forecasting, about the paradox of Jevons, sustainability, the ecological transition, and the translation of scientific knowledge into policy, Shark biology and conservation, and more. Reviews articles surrounding the latest advances in marine biology Authored by leading figures in their respective fields of study Presents materials that are widely used by managers, students and academic professionals in the marine sciences

This book celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of publication of one of the landmarks of the modern ecological thought: the “Homage to Santa Rosalia or why are there so many kinds of animals” by George Evelyn Hutchinson. Published in 1959 in the journal “The American Naturalist”, this article has been the engine which have moved most of the ecological research on biodiversity in the last half a century. Hutchinson starts his article by telling the legend of Santa Rosalia, a hermit who died in the second half of the XIII century and who spent the last years of her life in a cave nearby a pond. In this pond Hutchinson collected two species of aquatic insects and took the inspiration to explore the reasons why life is present on our Planet in such amazing variety of forms. This article thus inaugurated the season of research on biodiversity. Researchers and students in the field of ecology are the readers to whom this book is mainly addressed but also those involved in the history of Science will find in this book useful information. Issued in 2010, which has been declared “international Year of Biodiversity” by the United Nations, this book is also a tribute to the biological diversity allowing, enriching and sustaining human life.