The Origin and Evolution of Pacific Island Biotas, New Guinea to Eastern Polynesia PDF Download

Author: Allen Keast
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789051031362
Category : Biogeography
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Author: Allen Keast
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description

Author: Andrew J. Marshall
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462906796
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 800

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Book Description
The Ecology of Papua provides a comprehensive review of current scientific knowledge on all aspects of the natural history of western (Indonesian) New Guinea. Designed for students of conservation, environmental workers, and academic researchers, it is a richly detailed text, dense with biogeographical data, historical reference, and fresh insight on this complicated and marvelous region. We hope it will serve to raise awareness of Papua on a global as well as local scale, and to catalyze effective conservation of its most precious natural assets. New Guinea is the largest and highest tropical island, and one of the last great wilderness areas remaining on Earth. Papua, the western half of New Guinea, is noteworthy for its equatorial glaciers, its vast forested floodplains, its imposing central mountain range, its Raja Ampat Archipelago, and its several hundred traditional forest-dwelling societies. One of the wildest places left in the world, Papua possesses extraordinary biological and cultural diversity. Today, Papua’s environment is under threat from growing outside pressures to exploit its expansive forests and to develop large plantations of oil palm and biofuels. It is important that Papua’s leadership balance economic development with good resource management, to ensure the long-term well-being of its culturally diverse populace.

Author: C. Barry Cox
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118968581
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 506

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Book Description
Through eight successful editions, and over nearly 40 years, Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach has provided a thorough and comprehensive exploration of the varied scientific disciplines and research that are essential to understanding the subject. The text has been praised for its solid background in historical biogeography and basic biology, that is enhanced and illuminated by discussions of current research. This new edition incorporates the exciting changes of the recent years, and presents a thoughtful exploration of the research and controversies that have transformed our understanding of the biogeography of the world. It also clearly identifies the three quite different arenas of biogeographical research: continental biogeography, island biogeography and marine biogeography. It is the only current textbook with full coverage of marine biogeography. It reveals how the patterns of life that we see today have been created by the two great Engines of the Planet - the Geological Engine, plate tectonics, which alters the conditions of life on the planet, and the Biological Engine, evolution, which responds to these changes by creating new forms and patterns of life.

Author: Robert Cowie
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1387155334
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
The islands of the Samoan archipelago lie about 14 degrees south of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean. Politically, they are divided into two groups: Samoa (formerly Western Samoa), an indepedent state and American Samoa, a territory of the USA. The islands have been formed as a result of complex volcanic activity; they are geologically young. While many of the plants and birds of the Samoan Islands are found elsewhere in the Pacific, many of the snail species are found nowhere else on Earth. This guide is intended to permit identification of mos of the terrestrial snails, and slugs of the Samoan Islands. It is intended to be accessible to the amateur naturalist but also to provide the experienced scientist with a compact resource of information. The guide covers both the native species and the non-native, introduced species, which are generall more frequently encountered, especially at low elevations and in habits disturbed by human activities.

Author: Ted J. Case
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195133463
Category : Biogeography
Languages : en
Pages : 690

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Book Description
This updated and expanded A New Island Biogeography of the Sea of Cortes, first published nearly 20 years ago, integrates new and broader studies encompassing more taxa and more complete island coverage. The present synthesis provides a basis for further research and exploration in upcomingyears of the biologically fascinating Sea of Cortes region. The Gulf region is increasingly being exploited, for its natural resources by way of marine fisheries, and for its stunning natural beauty by way of a burgeoning tourism industry. Further, the region's human population is increasing apace.It is appropriate, therefore, that this volume discusses these evolving circumstances, and the efforts of the Mexican government to regulate and manage them. The new Biogeography includes a section on the conservation issues in the Sea of Cortes, past accomplishments and conservation needs as yetoutstanding. This book should be of strong interest to conservation biologists, ecologists, and evolutionary biologists more generally.

Author: David Gower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139536222
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
The flora and fauna of Southeast Asia are exceptionally diverse. The region includes several terrestrial biodiversity hotspots and is the principal global hotspot for marine diversity, but it also faces the most intense challenges of the current global biodiversity crisis. Providing reviews, syntheses and results of the latest research into Southeast Asian earth and organismal history, this book investigates the history, present and future of the fauna and flora of this bio- and geodiverse region. Leading authorities in the field explore key topics including palaeogeography, palaeoclimatology, biogeography, population genetics and conservation biology, illustrating research approaches and themes with spatially, taxonomically and methodologically focused case studies. The volume also presents methodological advances in population genetics and historical biogeography. Exploring the fascinating environmental and biotic histories of Southeast Asia, this is an ideal resource for graduate students and researchers as well as environmental NGOs.

Author: Jürgen Haffer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 354071779X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
This book is the first detailed biography of Ernst Mayr. He was an ‘architect’ of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution, and the greatest evolutionary biologist since Charles Darwin, influential historian and philosopher of biology, outstanding taxonomist and ornithologist, and naturalist. He is one of the most widely known biologists of the 20th century. Mayr used the theories of natural selection and population thinking as theoretical models within the framework of historical biological studies. He was the first to emphasize the role of biopopulations, thereby pointing out the basic difference between ’population thinking’ and typological essentialism.

Author: Herbert H. T. Prins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110778297X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 543

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Book Description
Many conservationists argue that invasive species form one of the most important threats to ecosystems the world over, often spreading quickly through their new environments and jeopardising the conservation of native species. As such, it is important that reliable predictions can be made regarding the effects of new species on particular habitats. This book provides a critical appraisal of ecosystem theory using case studies of biological invasions in Australasia. Each chapter is built around a set of eleven central hypotheses from community ecology, which were mainly developed in North American or European contexts. The authors examine the hypotheses in the light of evidence from their particular species, testing their power in explaining the success or failure of invasion and accepting or rejecting each hypothesis as appropriate. The conclusions have far-reaching consequences for the utility of community ecology, suggesting a rejection of its predictive powers and a positive reappraisal of natural history.

Author: Ernst Mayr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195349665
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 550

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Book Description
Speciation is the process by which co-existing daughter species evolve from one ancestral species - e.g., humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas arising from a common ancestor around 5,000,000 years ago. However, many questions about speciation remain controversial. The Birds of Northern Melanesia provides by far the most comprehensive study yet available of a rich fauna, composed of the 195 breeding land and fresh-water bird species of the Bismarck and Solomon Archipelagoes east of New Guinea. This avifauna offers decisive advantages for understanding speciation, and includes famous examples of geographic variation discussed in textbooks of evolutionary biology. The book results from 30 years of collaboration between the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr and the ecologist Jared Diamond. It shows how Northern Melanesian bird distributions provide snapshots of all stages in speciation, from the earliest (widely distributed species without geographic variation) to the last (closely related, reproductively isolated species occurring sympatrically and segregating ecologically). The presentation emphasizes the wide diversity of speciation outcomes, steering a middle course between one-model-fits-all simplification and ungeneralizable species accounts. Questions illuminated include why some species are much more prone to speciate than others, why some water barriers are much more effective at promoting speciation than others, and whether hypothesized taxon cycles, faunal dominance, and legacies of Pleistocene land bridges are real. These years of study have resulted in a huge database, complete with distributions of all 195 species on 76 islands, together with their taxonomy, colonization routes, ecological attributes, abundance, and overwater dispersal. Color plates depict 88 species and allospecies, many of which have never been seen before. For students of speciation, Northern Melanesian birds now constitute a model system against which other biotas can be compared. For population biologists interested in other problems besides speciation, this rich database can now be mined for insights.