Author: David C. Culver Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674004252 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
Their work reveals the advantages of caves for studying natural selection: the highly simplified habitats found underground serve as a natural laboratory for the evolutionary biologist, and the distinctive morphological features of cave fauna provide a wealth of data on evolutionary history and natural selection.
Author: David C. Culver Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192552767 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
The second edition of this widely cited textbook continues to provide a concise but comprehensive introduction to cave and subterranean biology, describing this fascinating habitat and its biodiversity. It covers a range of biological processes including ecosystem function, evolution and adaptation, community ecology, biogeography, and conservation. The authors draw on a global range of examples and case studies from both caves and non-cave subterranean habitats. One of the barriers to the study of subterranean biology has been the extraordinarily large number of specialized terms used by researchers; the authors explain these terms clearly and minimize the number that they use. This new edition retains the same 10 chapter structure of the original, but the content has been thoroughly revised and updated throughout to reflect the huge increase in publications concerning subterranean biology over the last decade.
Author: David C. Culver Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0191551449 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
This book offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to cave ecology. The emphasis is on the organisms that dominate this unique environment, although conservation and management aspects are also considered. The book is intended for both graduate students and professionals and assumes no previous knowledge of cave biology. -;Caves and other subterranean habitats with their often strange (even bizarre) inhabitants have long been objects of fascination, curiosity, and debate. The question of how such organisms have evolved, and the relative roles of natural selection and genetic drift, has engaged subterranean biologists for decades. Indeed, these studies continue to inform the more general question of adaptation and evolution. However, interest in subterranean biology is not limited to questions of. evolutionary biology. Both the distribution and the apparent ancient age of many subterranean species continue to be of significant interest to biogeographers. Subterranean ecosystems generally exhibit little or no primary productivity and, as extreme ecosystems, provide general insights into ecosystem. function. Furthermore, the simplicity of subterranean communities relative to most surface-dwelling communities makes them useful model systems for the study of species interactions such as competition and predation, as well as more general principles of ecosystem function. The rarity of many cave species makes them of special interest in conservation biology. The Biology of Caves and other Subterranean Habitats offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to cave ecology. Whilst there is an emphasis on the organisms that dominate this unique environment, conservation and management aspects are also considered. The book includes a global range of examples and case studies from both caves and non-cave subterranean habitats; it also provides a clear explanation of specialized terms used by speleologists. This accessible text will appeal to. researchers new to the field and to the many professional ecologists and conservation practitioners requiring a concise but authoritative overview. Its engaging style will also make it suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in cave and subterranean biology. -
Author: George Christopher Williams Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691185506 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 335
Book Description
Biological evolution is a fact—but the many conflicting theories of evolution remain controversial even today. When Adaptation and Natural Selection was first published in 1966, it struck a powerful blow against those who argued for the concept of group selection—the idea that evolution acts to select entire species rather than individuals. Williams’s famous work in favor of simple Darwinism over group selection has become a classic of science literature, valued for its thorough and convincing argument and its relevance to many fields outside of biology. Now with a new foreword by Richard Dawkins, Adaptation and Natural Selection is an essential text for understanding the nature of scientific debate.
Author: Carl H. Eigenmann Publisher: ISBN: 9781331890140 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 316
Book Description
Excerpt from Cave Vertebrates of America: A Study in Degenerative Evolution About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Author: Oana Teodora Moldovan Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3319988522 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 545
Book Description
Cave organisms are the ‘monsters’ of the underground world and studying them invariably raises interesting questions about the ways evolution has equipped them to survive in permanent darkness and low-energy environments. Undertaking ecological studies in caves and other subterranean habitats is not only challenging because they are difficult to access, but also because the domain is so different from what we know from the surface, with no plants at the base of food chains and with a nearly constant microclimate year-round. The research presented here answers key questions such as how a constant environment can produce the enormous biodiversity seen below ground, what adaptations and peculiarities allow subterranean organisms to thrive, and how they are affected by the constraints of their environment. This book is divided into six main parts, which address: the habitats of cave animals; their complex diversity; the environmental factors that support that diversity; individual case studies of cave ecosystems; and of the conservation challenges they face; all of which culminate in proposals for future research directions. Given its breadth of coverage, it offers an essential reference guide for graduate students and established researchers alike.
Author: Eleonora Trajano Publisher: CRC Press ISBN: 1439840482 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 496
Book Description
In most habitats, adaptations are the single most obvious aspects of an organism's phenotype. However, the most obvious feature of many subterranean animals are losses, not adaptations. Even Darwin saw subterranean animals as degenerates: examples of eyelessness and loss of structure in general. For him, the explanation was a straightforward Lamarc
Author: David C. Culver
Author: David C. Culver
Author: Carl H. Eigenmann
Author: David C. Culver
Author: Aldemaro Romero Díaz
Author: George Christopher Williams
Author: Enrico Lunghi
Author: Carl H. Eigenmann
Author: Oana Teodora Moldovan
Author: Eleonora Trajano