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742 books about Ecology and 48 start with A
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Abundant Earth: Toward an Ecological Civilization
Eileen Crist
University of Chicago Press, 2019
Library of Congress QH75.C735 2018 | Dewey Decimal 333.9516

In Abundant Earth, Eileen Crist not only documents the rising tide of biodiversity loss, but also lays out the drivers of this wholesale destruction and how we can push past them. Looking beyond the familiar litany of causes—a large and growing human population, rising livestock numbers, expanding economies and international trade, and spreading infrastructures and incursions upon wildlands—she asks the key question: if we know human expansionism is to blame for this ecological crisis, why are we not taking the needed steps to halt our expansionism?

Crist argues that to do so would require a two-pronged approach. Scaling down calls upon us to lower the global human population while working within a human-rights framework, to deindustrialize food production, and to localize economies and contract global trade. Pulling back calls upon us to free, restore, reconnect, and rewild vast terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, the pervasive worldview of human supremacy—the conviction that humans are superior to all other life-forms and entitled to use these life-forms and their habitats—normalizes and promotes humanity’s ongoing expansion, undermining our ability to enact these linked strategies and preempt the mounting suffering and dislocation of both humans and nonhumans.

Abundant Earth urges us to confront the reality that humanity will not advance by entrenching its domination over the biosphere. On the contrary, we will stagnate in the identity of nature-colonizer and decline into conflict as we vie for natural resources. Instead, we must chart another course, choosing to live in fellowship within the vibrant ecologies of our wild and domestic cohorts, and enfolding human inhabitation within the rich expanse of a biodiverse, living planet.
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Adaptation in Metapopulations: How Interaction Changes Evolution
Michael J. Wade
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Library of Congress QH546.W23 2016 | Dewey Decimal 578.4

All organisms live in clusters, but such fractured local populations, or demes, nonetheless maintain connectivity with one another by some amount of gene flow between them. Most such metapopulations occur naturally, like clusters of amphibians in vernal ponds or baboon troops spread across the African veldt. Others have been created as human activities fragment natural landscapes, as in stands of trees separated by roads. As landscape change has accelerated, understanding how these metapopulations function—and specifically how they adapt—has become crucial to ecology and to our very understanding of evolution itself.

With Adaptation in Metapopulations, Michael J. Wade explores a key component of this new understanding of evolution: interaction. Synthesizing decades of work in the lab and in the field in a book both empirically grounded and underpinned by a strong conceptual framework, Wade looks at the role of interaction across scales from gene selection to selection at the level of individuals, kin, and groups. In so doing, he integrates molecular and organismal biology to reveal the true complexities of evolutionary dynamics from genes to metapopulations.
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Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative
Alexa Weik von Mossner
The Ohio State University Press, 2017
Library of Congress PN98.E36W45 2017 | Dewey Decimal 809.93353

Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative explores our emotional engagement with environmental narrative. Focusing on the American cultural context, Alexa Weik von Mossner develops an ecocritical approach that draws on the insights of affective science and cognitive narratology. This approach helps to clarify how we interact with environmental narratives in ways that are both biologically universal and culturally specific. In doing so, it pays particular attention to the thesis that our minds are both embodied (in a physical body) and embedded (in a physical environment), not only when we interact with the real world but also in our engagement with imaginary worlds.
 
How do we experience the virtual environments we encounter in literature and film on the sensory and emotional level? How do environmental narratives invite us to care for human and nonhuman others who are put at risk? And how do we feel about the speculative futures presented to us in ecotopian and ecodystopian texts? Weik von Mossner explores these central questions that are important to anyone with an interest in the emotional appeal and persuasive power of environmental narratives.
 
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African Sacred Groves: Ecological Dynamics and Social Change
Michael J. Sheridan
Ohio University Press, 2007
Library of Congress BL583.A47 2008 | Dewey Decimal 333.750967

In western scholarship, Africa’s so-called sacred forests are often treated as the remains of primeval forests, ethnographic curiosities, or cultural relics from a static precolonial past. Their continuing importance in African societies, however, shows that this “relic theory” is inadequate for understanding current social and ecological dynamics. African Sacred Groves challenges dominant views of these landscape features by redefining the subject matter beyond the compelling yet uninformative term “sacred.” The term “ethnoforests” incorporates the environmental, social-political, and symbolic aspects of these forests without giving undue primacy to their religious values. This interdisciplinary
book by an international group of scholars and conservation practitioners provides a methodological framework for understanding these forests by examining their ecological characteristics, delineating how they relate to social dynamics and historical contexts, exploring their ideological aspects, and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses as sites for community-based resource management and the conservation of cultural and biological diversity.
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African Universities and the COVID-19 Pandemic
José Jackson-Malete
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021

Prologue
Context and Rationale for the Thought Pieces on COVID-19 Response in Africa
Paul Tiyambe Zeleza

Section 1: COVID-19 Pandemic: Responses and Lessons Learnt from AAP African Universities
AAP Universities’ Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned and Shared
Samuel L. Stanley, Jr., Tawana Kupe, Ibrahima Thioub, David Norris, and Rose Mwonya

Reflections on University Education in Uganda and the COVID-19 Pandemic Shock: Responses and Lessons Learned
Barnabas Nawangwe, Anthony Mugagga Muwagga, Mukadasi Buyinza, and Fred Masaazi Masagazi

COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria: Lessons on Responsibility, University Leadership, and Navigating the New Normal
Olanike K. Adeyemo, Selim A. Alarape, Victoria O. Adetunji, and David T. Afolayan

Facing COVID-19 Pandemic Learning/Teaching Challenges: Lessons and Perspectives from Malian Universities
Fatoumata Keïta, Binta Koïta, Aboubacar Niamabélé, and Welore Tamboura

Strategies of the Dominican University Nigeria in Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic
Obiageli C. Okoye

Efforts to Preserve Educational Access, Research, and Public Service Relevance at the University of Dar es Salaam in the Age of COVID-19
Lulu T. Kaaya, William A. L. Anangisye, Bonaventure Rutinwa, and Bernadetha Killian

The Future of Continental and International Collaborations at the University of Nigeria after COVID-19
Charles A. Igwe, Anthonia I. Achike, and Bennett C. Nwanguma

Section 2: Social and Psychological Impacts of COVID-19 in the African HEI Context
Exploring the Gendered Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Academic Staff in Tanzania
Perpetua J. Urio, Susan P. Murphy, Ikupa Moses, Consolata Chua, and Immanuel Darkwa
The Mental and Psychosocial Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on University Faculty and Students
Ruthie C. Rono and Lucy Waithera Kung’u

Coping with the Impact of COVID-19 in Higher Education: Responses and Recommendations from the University of Botswana
Lucky Odirile

African Women Scientists’ COVID-Related Experiences: Reflecting on the Challenges and Suggesting Ways Forward
Olubukola Oluranti Babalola, Stephenie Chinwe Alaribe, Olabimpe Ajoke Olatunji, Pendo Nandiga Bigambo, Sunday Samson Babalola, Adenike Eunice Amoo, Mercy Olajumoke Kutu, Inutu Katoti, Hazel Tumelo Mufhandu, and Helen Orisaghe Imarfidor

Locked Down during the Lockdown
Egodi Uchendu, Amuche Nnabueze, and Elizabeth Onogwu

Section 3: Stories of Innovative Approaches to Issues of Access to Education and Research in the African HEI Context During and Beyond
Looking into Africa’s Future: The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Role of ICT Education
Romain Murenzi, Max Paoli, Sena Galazzi, and Sean Treacy

A Community-University Partnership: Responding to COVID-19 in South Africa via the University of Pretoria’s Community Engagement Initiative
Martina Jordaan and Nita Mennega

Pre- and Post-COVID-19: Exploring Issues of Access in Higher Education in Botswana and Ghana
Gbolagade Adekanmbi, Joseph Ammoti Kasozi, Christinah Seabelo, and Changu Batisani

Business Repositioning at Botswana Open University in the Face of COVID-19
Sunny Enow Aiyuk, Lekopanye Lacic Tladi, and Freeson Kaniwa

COVID-19 and African Civil Society Organizations: Impact and Responses
Shaninomi Eribo

Epilogue
Future Directions: Next Generation of Partnerships for Africa’s Post-COVID World
Richard Mkandawire, Amy Jamison, and José Jackson-Malete
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Afrofuturisms: Ecology, Humanity, and Francophone Cultural Expressions
Isaac Vincent Joslin
Ohio University Press, 2023

An exploration of Francophone African literary imaginations and expressions through the lens of Afrofuturism

Generally attributed to the Western imagination, science fiction is a literary genre that has expressed projected technological progress since the Industrial Revolution. However, certain fantastical elements in African literary expressions lend themselves to science fiction interpretations, both utopian and dystopian. When the concept of science is divorced from its Western, rationalist, materialist, positivist underpinnings, science fiction represents a broad imaginative space that supersedes the limits of this world. Whether it be on the moon, under the sea, or elsewhere within the imaginative universe, Afrofuturist readings of select films, novels, short stories, plays, and poems reveal a similarly emancipatory African future that is firmly rooted in its own cultural mythologies, cosmologies, and philosophies.

Isaac Joslin identifies the contours and modalities of a speculative, futurist science fiction rooted in the sociocultural and geopolitical context of continental African imaginaries. Constructing an arc that begins with gender identity and cultural plurality as the bases for an inherently multicultural society, this project traces the essential role of language and narrativity in processing traumas that stem from the violence of colonial and neocolonial interventions in African societies.

Joslin then outlines the influential role of discursive media that construct divisions and create illusions about societal success, belonging, and exclusion, while also identifying alternative critical existential mythologies that promote commonality and social solidarity. The trajectory proceeds with a critical analysis of the role of education in affirming collective identity in the era of globalization; the book also assesses the market-driven violence that undermines efforts to instill and promote cultural and social autonomy.

Last, this work proposes an egalitarian and ecological ethos of communal engagement with and respect for the diversity of the human and natural worlds.

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After Preservation: Saving American Nature in the Age of Humans
Edited by Ben A. Minteer and Stephen J. Pyne
University of Chicago Press, 2015
Library of Congress GE310.A38015 | Dewey Decimal 363.70720973

From John Muir to David Brower, from the creation of Yellowstone National Park to the Endangered Species Act, environmentalism in America has always had close to its core a preservationist ideal. Generations have been inspired by its ethos—to encircle nature with our protection, to keep it apart, pristine, walled against the march of human development. But we have to face the facts. Accelerating climate change, rapid urbanization, agricultural and industrial devastation, metastasizing fire regimes, and other quickening anthropogenic forces all attest to the same truth: the earth is now spinning through the age of humans. After Preservation takes stock of the ways we have tried to both preserve and exploit nature to ask a direct but profound question: what is the role of preservationism in an era of seemingly unstoppable human development, in what some have called the Anthropocene?
           
Ben A. Minteer and Stephen J. Pyne bring together a stunning consortium of voices comprised of renowned scientists, historians, philosophers, environmental writers, activists, policy makers, and land managers to negotiate the incredible challenges that environmentalism faces. Some call for a new, post-preservationist model, one that is far more pragmatic, interventionist, and human-centered. Others push forcefully back, arguing for a more chastened and restrained vision of human action on the earth. Some try to establish a middle ground, while others ruminate more deeply on the meaning and value of wilderness. Some write on species lost, others on species saved, and yet others discuss the enduring practical challenges of managing our land, water, and air.

From spirited optimism to careful prudence to critical skepticism, the resulting range of approaches offers an inspiring contribution to the landscape of modern environmentalism, one driven by serious, sustained engagements with the critical problems we must solve if we—and the wild garden we may now keep—are going to survive the era we have ushered in.  

Contributors include: Chelsea K. Batavia, F. Stuart (Terry) Chapin III, Norman L. Christensen, Jamie Rappaport Clark, William Wallace Covington, Erle C. Ellis, Mark Fiege, Dave Foreman, Harry W. Greene, Emma Marris, Michelle Marvier, Bill McKibben, J. R. McNeill, Curt Meine, Ben A. Minteer, Michael Paul Nelson, Bryan Norton, Stephen J. Pyne, Andrew C. Revkin, Holmes Rolston III, Amy Seidl, Jack Ward Thomas, Diane J. Vosick, John A. Vucetich, Hazel Wong, and Donald Worster. 
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After the Wildfire: Ten Years of Recovery from the Willow Fire
John Alcock
University of Arizona Press, 2017
Library of Congress SD421.32.A7A43 2017 | Dewey Decimal 363.3709791

Swallowtail butterflies frolic on the wind. Vireos and rock wrens sing their hearts out by the recovering creek. Spiders and other predators chase their next meal. Through it all, John Alcock observes, records, and delights in what he sees. In a once-burnt area, life resurges. Plants whose seeds and roots withstood an intense fire become habitat for the returning creatures of the wild. After the Wildfire describes the remarkable recovery of wildlife in the Mazatzal Mountains in central Arizona.

It is the rare observer who has the dedication to revisit the site of a wildfire, especially over many years and seasons. But naturalist John Alcock returned again and again to the Mazatzals, where the disastrous Willow fire of 2004 burned 187 square miles. Documenting the fire’s aftermath over a decade, Alcock thrills at the renewal of the once-blackened region. Walking the South Fork of Deer Creek in all seasons as the years passed, he was rewarded by the sight of exuberant plant life that in turn fostered an equally satisfying return of animals ranging from small insects to large mammals.

Alcock clearly explains the response of chaparral plants to fire and the creatures that reinhabit these plants as they come back from a ferocious blaze: the great spreadwing damselfly, the western meadowlark, the elk, and birds and bugs of rich and colorful varieties. This book is at once a journey of biological discovery and a celebration of the ability of living things to reoccupy a devastated location. Alcock encourages others to engage the natural world—even one that has burnt to the ground.

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The Albatross and the Fish: Linked Lives in the Open Seas
By Robin W. Doughty and Virginia Carmichael
University of Texas Press, 2011
Library of Congress QL696.P63D68 2011 | Dewey Decimal 333.95842

Breeding on remote ocean islands and spending much of its life foraging for food across vast stretches of seemingly empty seas, the albatross remains a legend for most people. And yet, humans are threatening the albatross family to such an extent that it is currently the most threatened bird group in the world. In this extensively researched, highly readable book, Robin W. Doughty and Virginia Carmichael tell the story of a potentially catastrophic extinction that has been interrupted by an unlikely alliance of governments, conservation groups, and fishermen.

Doughty and Carmichael authoritatively establish that the albatross's fate is linked to the fate of two of the highest-value table fish, Bluefin Tuna and Patagonian Toothfish, which are threatened by unregulated commercial harvesting. The authors tell us that commercial fishing techniques are annually killing tens of thousands of albatrosses. And the authors explain how the breeding biology of albatrosses makes them unable to replenish their numbers at the rate they are being depleted. Doughty and Carmichael set the albatross's fate in the larger context of threats facing the ocean commons, ranging from industrial overfishing to our habit of dumping chemicals, solid waste, and plastic trash into the open seas. They also highlight the efforts of dedicated individuals, environmental groups, fishery management bodies, and governments who are working for seabird and fish conservation and demonstrate that these efforts can lead to sustainable solutions for the iconic seabirds and the entire ocean ecosystem.

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Alchemy in the Rain Forest: Politics, Ecology, and Resilience in a New Guinea Mining Area
Jerry K. Jacka
Duke University Press, 2015
Library of Congress DU740.9.P66J33 2015

In Alchemy in the Rain Forest Jerry K. Jacka explores how the indigenous population of Papua New Guinea's highlands struggle to create meaningful lives in the midst of extreme social conflict and environmental degradation. Drawing on theories of political ecology, place, and ontology and using ethnographic, environmental, and historical data, Jacka presents a multilayered examination of the impacts large-scale commercial gold mining in the region has had on ecology and social relations. Despite the deadly interclan violence and widespread pollution brought on by mining, the uneven distribution of its financial benefits has led many Porgerans to call for further development. This desire for increased mining, Jacka points out, counters popular portrayals of indigenous people as innate conservationists who defend the environment from international neoliberal development. Jacka's examination of the ways Porgerans search for common ground between capitalist and indigenous ways of knowing and being points to the complexity and interconnectedness of land, indigenous knowledge, and the global economy in Porgera and beyond.
 
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The Alewives' Tale: The Life History and Ecology of River Herring in the Northeast
Barbara Brennessel
University of Massachusetts Press, 2014
Library of Congress QL638.C64B74 2014 | Dewey Decimal 597.45

While on vacation in 1980, biologist Barbara Brennessel and her family came across an amazing sight: hundreds of small silver fish migrating from the Atlantic Ocean, across a channel connecting two ponds in the town of Wellfleet on Cape Cod. She later learned that these tiny river herring were important for the ecology and economy of the region and that volunteers were counting fewer and fewer fish migrating each year.

The Alewives' Tale describes the plight of alewives and blueback herring, two fish species that have similar life histories and are difficult to distinguish by sight. Collectively referred to as river herring, they have been economically important since colonial times as food, fertilizer, and bait. In recent years they have attracted much attention from environmentalists, especially as attempts are being made, on and beyond Cape Cod, to restore the rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, and estuaries that are crucial for their reproduction and survival.

Brennessel provides an overview of the biology of the fish—from fertilized eggs to large schools of adults that migrate in the Atlantic Ocean—while describing the habitats at different stages of their life history. She explores the causes of the dramatic decline of river herring since the mid-twentieth century and the various efforts to restore these iconic fish to the historic populations that treated many onlookers to spectacular inland migrations each spring.
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Alien Species and Evolution: The Evolutionary Ecology of Exotic Plants, Animals, Microbes, and Interacting Native Species
George W. Cox
Island Press, 2004
Library of Congress QH353.C69 2004 | Dewey Decimal 578.62

In Alien Species and Evolution, biologist George W. Cox reviews and synthesizes emerging information on the evolutionary changes that occur in plants, animals, and microbial organisms when they colonize new geographical areas, and on the evolutionary responses of the native species with which alien species interact.

The book is broad in scope, exploring information across a wide variety of taxonomic groups, trophic levels, and geographic areas. It examines theoretical topics related to rapid evolutionary change and supports the emerging concept that species introduced to new physical and biotic environments are particularly prone to rapid evolution. The author draws on examples from all parts of the world and all major ecosystem types, and the variety of examples used gives considerable insight into the patterns of evolution that are likely to result from the massive introduction of species to new geographic regions that is currently occurring around the globe.

Alien Species and Evolution is the only state-of-the-art review and synthesis available of this critically important topic, and is an essential work for anyone concerned with the new science of invasion biology or the threats posed by invasive species.

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Alien Species in North America and Hawaii
George W. Cox
Island Press, 1999
Library of Congress SB990.5.U6C68 1999 | Dewey Decimal 577.18

The world is in the midst of an ecological explosion with devastating implications. Thousands of species of microbes, plants, and animals are being introduced, both deliberately and inadvertently, to new land areas, seas, and freshwaters. In many regions, these new colonists are running wild, disrupting the dynamics of ecosystems, pushing native species toward extinction, and causing billions of dollars in direct economic damages.Alien Species in North America and Hawaii provides a comprehensive overview of the invasive species phenomenon, examining the threats posed and the damage that has already been done to ecosystems across North America and Hawaii. George W. Cox considers both the biological theory underlying invasions and the potential and actual effects on ecosystems and human activities. His book offers a framework for understanding the problem and provides a detailed examination of species and regions. Specific chapters examine: North American invaders and their threats how exotic species are dispersed to new regions how physical and biotic features influence the establishment and spread of invasives patterns of exotic invasions, with separate chapters covering each of the ten most seriously invaded regions and ecosystems patterns of invasiveness exhibited by major groups of exotics the theory of invasive capability of alien species and the resistance of communities to invasion theoretical aspects of ecosystem impacts of invaders and the evolutionary interaction of invaders and natives management and public policy issuesAlien Species in North America and Hawaii offers for the first time an assessment and synthesis of the problem of invasive species in North American and Hawaiian ecosystems. Scientists, conservation professionals, policymakers, and anyone involved with the study and control of invasive species will find the book an essential guide and reference to one of the most serious and widespread threats to global biodiversity.
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All Flesh Is Grass: The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming
Gene Logsdon
Ohio University Press, 2004
Library of Congress SB199.L64 2004 | Dewey Decimal 633.202

Amidst Mad Cow scares and consumer concerns about how farm animals are bred, fed, and raised, many farmers and homesteaders are rediscovering the traditional practice of pastoral farming. Grasses, clovers, and forbs are the natural diet of cattle, horses, and sheep, and are vital supplements for hogs, chickens, and turkeys. Consumers increasingly seek the health benefits of meat from animals raised in green paddocks instead of in muddy feedlots.

In All Flesh Is Grass: The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming, Gene Logsdon explains that well-managed pastures are nutritious and palatable—virtual salads for livestock. Leafy pastures also hold the soil, foster biodiversity, and create lovely landscapes. Grass farming might be the solution for a stressed agricultural system based on an industrial model and propped up by federal subsidies.

In his clear and conversational style, Logsdon explains historically effective practices and new techniques. His warm, informative profiles of successful grass farmers offer inspiration and ideas. His narrative is enriched by his own experience as a “contrary farmer” on his artisan-scale farm near Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

All Flesh Is Grass will have broad appeal to the sustainable commercial farmer, the home-food producer, and all consumers who care about their food.

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Amber Waves: The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop
Catherine Zabinski
University of Chicago Press, 2020
Library of Congress SB191.W5Z27 2020 | Dewey Decimal 633.11

A biography of a staple grain we often take for granted, exploring how wheat went from wild grass to a world-shaping crop.

At breakfast tables and bakeries, we take for granted a grain that has made human civilization possible, a cereal whose humble origins belie its world-shaping power: wheat. Amber Waves tells the story of a group of grass species that first grew in scattered stands in the foothills of the Middle East until our ancestors discovered their value as a source of food. Over thousands of years, we moved their seeds to all but the polar regions of Earth, slowly cultivating what we now know as wheat, and in the process creating a world of cuisines that uses wheat seeds as a staple food. Wheat spread across the globe, but as ecologist Catherine Zabinski shows us, a biography of wheat is not only the story of how plants ensure their own success: from the earliest bread to the most mouthwatering pasta, it is also a story of human ingenuity in producing enough food for ourselves and our communities.

Since the first harvest of the ancient grain, we have perfected our farming systems to grow massive quantities of food, producing one of our species’ global mega crops—but at a great cost to ecological systems. And despite our vast capacity to grow food, we face problems with undernourishment both close to home and around the world. Weaving together history, evolution, and ecology, Zabinski’s tale explores much more than the wild roots and rise of a now-ubiquitous grain: it illuminates our complex relationship with our crops, both how we have transformed the plant species we use as food, and how our society—our culture—has changed in response to the need to secure food sources. From the origins of agriculture to gluten sensitivities, from our first selection of the largest seeds from wheat’s wild progenitors to the sequencing of the wheat genome and genetic engineering, Amber Waves sheds new light on how we grow the food that sustains so much human life.
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The Amboseli Elephants: A Long-Term Perspective on a Long-Lived Mammal
Edited by Cynthia J. Moss, Harvey Croze, and Phyllis C. Lee
University of Chicago Press, 2011
Library of Congress QL737.P98A475 2011 | Dewey Decimal 599.674

Elephants have fascinated humans for millennia. Aristotle wrote of them with awe; Hannibal used them in warfare; and John Donne called the elephant “Nature’s greatest masterpiece. . . . The only harmless great thing.” Their ivory has been sought after and treasured in most cultures, and they have delighted zoo and circus audiences worldwide for centuries. But it wasn’t until the second half of the twentieth century that people started to take an interest in elephants in the wild, and some of the most important studies of these intelligent giants have been conducted at Amboseli National Park in Kenya.

            
The Amboseli Elephants is the long-awaited summation of what’s been learned from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP)—the longest continuously running elephant research project in the world. Cynthia J. Moss and Harvey Croze, the founders of the AERP, and Phyllis C. Lee, who has been closely involved with the project since 1982, compile more than three decades of uninterrupted study of over 2,500 individual elephants, from newborn calves to adult bulls to old matriarchs in their 60s. Chapters explore such topics as elephant ecosystems, genetics, communication, social behavior, and reproduction, as well as exciting new developments from the study of elephant minds and cognition. The book closes with a view to the future, making important arguments for the ethical treatment of elephants and suggestions to aid in their conservation.

            
The most comprehensive account of elephants in their natural environment to date, The Amboseli Elephants will be an invaluable resource for scientists, conservationists, and anyone interested in the lives and loves of these extraordinary creatures.        

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The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 1 (July 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 2 (August 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 3 (September 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 4 (October 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 5 (November 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

This is volume 200 issue 5 of The American Naturalist. Since its inception in 1867, The American Naturalist has maintained its position as one of the world’s premier peer-reviewed publications in ecology, evolution, and behavior research. Its goals are to publish articles that are of broad interest to the readership, pose new and significant problems, introduce novel subjects, develop conceptual unification, and change the way people think. The American Naturalist emphasizes sophisticated methodologies and innovative theoretical syntheses — all in an effort to advance the knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles.
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The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 6 (December 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

This is volume 200 issue 6 of The American Naturalist. Since its inception in 1867, The American Naturalist has maintained its position as one of the world’s premier peer-reviewed publications in ecology, evolution, and behavior research. Its goals are to publish articles that are of broad interest to the readership, pose new and significant problems, introduce novel subjects, develop conceptual unification, and change the way people think. The American Naturalist emphasizes sophisticated methodologies and innovative theoretical syntheses — all in an effort to advance the knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles.
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The American Naturalist, volume 201 number 1 (January 2023)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2023

This is volume 201 issue 1 of The American Naturalist. Since its inception in 1867, The American Naturalist has maintained its position as one of the world’s premier peer-reviewed publications in ecology, evolution, and behavior research. Its goals are to publish articles that are of broad interest to the readership, pose new and significant problems, introduce novel subjects, develop conceptual unification, and change the way people think. The American Naturalist emphasizes sophisticated methodologies and innovative theoretical syntheses — all in an effort to advance the knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles.
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America's Founding Fruit: The Cranberry in a New Environment
Susan Playfair
University Press of New England, 2014
Library of Congress SB383.P53 2014 | Dewey Decimal 634.760973

The cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon, is one of only three cultivated fruits native to North America. The story of this perennial vine began as the glaciers retreated about fifteen thousand years ago. Centuries later, it kept Native Americans and Pilgrims alive through the winter months, played a role in a diplomatic gesture to King Charles in 1677, protected sailors on board whaling ships from scurvy, fed General Grant’s men in 1864, and provided over a million pounds of sustenance per year to our World War II doughboys. Today, it is a powerful tool in the fight against various forms of cancer. This is America’s superfruit. This book poses the question of how the cranberry, and by inference other fruits, will fare in a warming climate. In her attempt to evaluate the effects of climate change, Susan Playfair interviewed growers from Massachusetts west to Oregon and from New Jersey north to Wisconsin, the cranberry’s temperature tolerance range. She also spoke with scientists studying the health benefits of cranberries, plant geneticists mapping the cranberry genome, a plant biologist who provided her with the first regression analysis of cranberry flowering times, and a migrant beekeeper trying to figure out why the bees are dying. Taking a broader view than the other books on cranberries, America’s Founding Fruit presents a brief history of cranberry cultivation and its role in our national history, leads the reader through the entire cultivation process from planting through distribution, and assesses the possible effects of climate change on the cranberry and other plants and animals. Could the American cranberry cease growing in the United States? If so, what would be lost?
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Animal Body Size: Linking Pattern and Process across Space, Time, and Taxonomic Group
Edited by Felisa A. Smith and S. Kathleen Lyons
University of Chicago Press, 2013
Library of Congress QL799.A55 2013 | Dewey Decimal 591.41

Galileo wrote that “nature cannot produce a horse as large as twenty ordinary horses or a giant ten times taller than an ordinary man unless by miracle or by greatly altering the proportions of his limbs and especially of his bones”—a statement that wonderfully captures a long-standing scientific fascination with body size. Why are organisms the size that they are? And what determines their optimum size?          
           
This volume explores animal body size from a macroecological perspective, examining species, populations, and other large groups of animals in order to uncover the patterns and causal mechanisms of body size throughout time and across the globe. The chapters represent diverse scientific perspectives and are divided into two sections. The first includes chapters on insects, snails, birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals and discusses the body size patterns of these various organisms. The second examines some of the factors behind, and consequences of, body size patterns and includes chapters on community assembly, body mass distribution, life history, and the influence of flight on body size.
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Animal Ecology
Charles S. Elton
University of Chicago Press, 2001
Library of Congress QH541.E398 2001 | Dewey Decimal 591.7

Charles Elton was one of the founders of ecology, and his Animal Ecology was one of the seminal works that defined the field. In this book Elton introduced and drew together many principles still central to ecology today, including succession, niche, food webs, and the links between communities and ecosystems, each of which he illustrated with well-chosen examples. Many of Elton's ideas have proven remarkably prescient—for instance, his emphasis on the role climatic changes play in population fluctuations anticipated recent research in this area stimulated by concerns about global warming.

For Chicago's reprint of this classic work, ecologists Mathew A. Leibold and J. Timothy Wootton have provided new introductions to each chapter, placing Elton's ideas in historical and scientific context. They trace modern developments in each of the key themes Elton introduced, and provide references to the most current literature. The result will be an important work for ecologists interested in the roots of their discipline, for educated readers looking for a good overview of the field, and for historians of science.
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Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues: Reflections on Redecorating Nature
Marc Bekoff, foreword by Jane Goodall
Temple University Press, 2005
Library of Congress QL785.B36 2006 | Dewey Decimal 591.56

What is it really like to be a dog? Do animals experience emotions like pleasure, joy, and grief? Marc Bekoff's work draws world-wide attention for its originality and its probing into what animals think about and know as well as what they feel, what physical and mental skills they use to live successfully within their social community. Bekoff's work, whether addressed to scientists or the general public, demonstrates that investigations into animal thought, emotions, self-awareness, behavioral ecology, and conservation biology can be compassionate as well as scientifically rigorous.In Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues, Bekoff brings together essays on his own ground-breaking research and on what scientists know about the remarkable range and flexibility of animal behavior. His fascinating and often amusing observations of dogs, wolves, coyotes, prairie dogs, elephants, and other animals playing, leaving and detecting scent-marks ("yellow snow"), solving problems, and forming friendships challenge the idea that science and the ethical treatment of animals are incompatible.
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Animals and the Maya in Southeast Mexico
E. N. Anderson and Felix Medina Tzuc
University of Arizona Press, 2005
Library of Congress F1435.3.D64A63 2005 | Dewey Decimal 636.0097267

In Mexico’s southeastern frontier state of Quintana Roo, game animals and other creatures that depend on old-growth forest are disappearing in the face of habitat destruction and overhunting. Traditionally, the Yucatec Maya have regarded animals as fellow members of a wider society, and in their religion animals enjoy the status of spiritual beings. But in recent years, the breakdown of cultural restraints on hunting has spiraled so far out of control that almost everything edible within easy reach of a road has become fair game.

This book combines the insights of an anthropologist with the hands-on experience of a Maya campesino with the aim of improving the management of Quintana Roo’s wild lands and animal resources. E. N. Anderson and Felix Medina Tzuc pool their knowledge to document Yucatec Maya understanding and use of animals and to address practical matters related to wider conservation issues.
 
Although the Yucatec Maya’s ethnobotany has been well documented, until now little has been recorded about their animal lore. Anderson and Medina Tzuc have compiled a wealth of information about traditional knowledge of animals in this corner of the Maya world. They have recorded most of the terms widely used for several hundred categories of animals in west central Quintana Roo, mapped them onto biological categories, and recorded basic information about wildlife management and uses.

The book reflects a wealth of knowledge gathered from individuals regarded as experts on particular aspects of animal management, whether hunting, herding, or beekeeping. It also offers case studies of conservation successes and failures in various communities, pointing to the need for cooperation by the Mexican government and Maya people to save wildlife. Appendixes provide an extensive animal classification and a complete list of all birds identified in the area.

Even though sustainable forestry has finally come to the Yucatán, sustainable game use is practiced by only a few communities. Animals and the Maya in Southeast Mexico is a complete ethnozoology for the region, offered in the hope that it will encourage the recognition of Quintana Roo’s forests and wildlife as no less deserving of protection than ancient Maya cities.
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Animate Planet: Making Visceral Sense of Living in a High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World
Kath Weston
Duke University Press, 2017
Library of Congress GF41.W475 2016

In Animate Planet Kath Weston shows how new intimacies between humans, animals, and their surroundings are emerging as people attempt to understand how the high-tech ecologically damaged world they have made is remaking them, one synthetic chemical, radioactive isotope, and megastorm at a time. Visceral sensations, she finds, are vital to this process, which yields a new animism in which humans and "the environment" become thoroughly entangled. In case studies on food, water, energy, and climate from the United States, India, and Japan, Weston approaches the new animism as both a symptom of our times and an analytic with the potential to open paths to new and forgotten ways of living.
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The Anthrobscene
Jussi Parikka
University of Minnesota Press, 2014

Smartphones, laptops, tablets, and e-readers all at one time held the promise of a more environmentally healthy world not dependent on paper and deforestation. The result of our ubiquitous digital lives is, as we see in The Anthrobscene, actually quite the opposite: not ecological health but an environmental wasteland, where media never die. Jussi Parikka critiques corporate and human desires as a geophysical force, analyzing the material side of the earth as essential for the existence of media and introducing the notion of an alternative deep time in which media live on in the layer of toxic waste we will leave behind as our geological legacy. 

Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.
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Anthropologies of Guayana: Cultural Spaces in Northeastern Amazonia
Edited by Neil L. Whitehead and Stephanie Alemán
University of Arizona Press, 2009
Library of Congress F2351.A67 2009 | Dewey Decimal 988.01

Unlike better-known regions of the Amazon, Guayana—a broad cultural region that includes the countries of Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana, as well as parts of eastern Venezuela and northern Brazil—has rarely been integrated into the broader narratives of South American anthropology and history. Nevertheless, Guayana provides a unique historical context for the persistence and survival of native peoples distinct from the histories reflected by the intense colonial competition in the region over the past 500 years.

This is an important collection that brings together the work of scholars from North America, South America, and Europe to reveal the anthropological significance of Guayana, the ancient realm of El Dorado and still the scene of gold and diamond mining. Beginning with the earliest civilizations of the region, the chapters focus on the historical ecology of the rain forest and the archaeological record up to the sixteenth century, as well as ethnography, ethnology, and perceptions of space. The book features extensive discussions of the history of a range of indigenous groups, such as the Waiwai, Trio, Wajãpi, and Palikur. Contributions analyze the emergence of a postcolonial national society, the contrasts between the coastlands and upland regions, and the significance of race and violence in contemporary politics.

A noteworthy study of the prehistory and history of the region, the book also provides a useful survey of the current issues facing northeastern Amazonia. The chapters extend the anthropological agenda beyond the conventional focus on the “indigenous” even as contributors describe how Guayanese languages, mythologies, and social structures have remained resilient in the face of intense outside pressures.
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Applied Panarchy: Applications and Diffusion across Disciplines
Edited by Lance H. Gunderson, Craig R. Allen, and Ahjond Garmestani
Island Press, 2022

After a decades-long economic slump, the city of Flint, Michigan, struggled to address chronic issues of toxic water supply, malnutrition, and food security gaps among its residents. A community-engaged research project proposed a resilience assessment that would use panarchy theory to move the city toward a more sustainable food system. Flint is one of many examples that demonstrates how panarchy theory is being applied to understand and influence change in complex human-natural systems. Applied Panarchy, the much-anticipated successor to Lance Gunderson and C.S. Holling’s seminal 2002 volume Panarchy, documents the extraordinary advances in interdisciplinary panarchy scholarship and applications over the past two decades. Panarchy theory has been applied to a broad range of fields, from economics to law to urban planning, changing the practice of environmental stewardship for the better in measurable, tangible ways.

Panarchy describes the way systems—whether forests, electrical grids, agriculture, coastal surges, public health, or human economies and governance—are part of even larger systems that interact in unpredictable ways. Although humans desire resiliency and stability in our lives to help us understand the world and survive, nothing in nature is permanently stable. How can society anticipate and adjust to the changes we see around us? Where Panarchy proposed a framework to understand how these transformational cycles work and how we might influence them, Applied Panarchy takes the scholarship to the next level, demonstrating how these concepts have been modified and refined. The book shows how panarchy theory intersects with other disciplines, and how it directly influences natural resources management and environmental stewardship.

Intended as a text for graduate courses in environmental sciences and related fields, Applied Panarchy picks up where Panarchy left off, inspiring new generations of scholars, researchers, and professionals to put its ideas to work in practical ways.
 
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Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 24, no. 1
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021

In This Issue

Ecology, fisheries and aquaculture in African aquatic ecosystems: GLOW 9, Part I

Editorial
Preface

What affects fisheries in African lakes: Climate change or fishing effort? A case study from Lake Kariba
B. E. Marshall (New Zealand)

Using the Multi-metric Index of Biotic Integrity methodological approach to determine the major river catchment that most pollutes a lake
C. M. Aura, C. S. Nyamweya, J. M. Njiru, R. Omondi, J. Manyala, S. Musa, H. Owiti, F. Guya, C. Ongore, Z. Ogari, J. Mwamburi (Kenya)

Sustainable crab fishery for blue economy in Kenya
E. N. Fondo, B. Ogutu (Kenya)

Growth and survival of Mud Crab, Scylla serrata, reared in bottom and floating cages within Mida creek mangroves, coastal Kenya
J. M. Mwaluma, B. Kaunda-Arara (Kenya)

The status of seagrass beds in the coastal county of Lamu, Kenya
J. Uku, L. Daudi, V. Alati, A. Nzioka, C. Muthama (Kenya) 35

An overview of fish disease and parasite occurrence in the cage culture of Oreochromis niloticus: A case study in Lake Victoria, Kenya
V. M. Mwainge, C. Ogwai, C. M. Aura, A. Mutie, V. Ombwa, H. Nyaboke, K. N. Oyier, J. Nyaundi (Kenya)

The state of cage culture in Lake Victoria: A focus on sustainability, rural economic empowerment, and food security
P. Orina, E. Ogello, E. Kembenya, C. Muthoni, S. Musa, V. Ombwa, V. Mwainge, J. Abwao, R. Ondiba, J. Kengere, S. Karoza (Kenya)

Socioeconomic dynamics and characterization of land-based aquaculture in Western Kenya
J. Abwao, S. Musa, R. Ondiba, Z. Ogari (Kenya)

The role of women in freshwater aquaculture development in Kenya
F. J. Awuor (Kenya)

Fish feeds and feed management practices in the Kenyan aquaculture sector: Challenges and opportunities
J. Munguti, H. Odame, J. Kirimi, K. Obiero, E. Ogello, D. Liti (Kenya)

The effects of situation analysis practices on implementation of poverty alleviation mariculture projects in the coast of Kenya
J. O. Odhiambo, J. Wakibia, M. M. Sakwa, F. Munyi, H. Owiti, E. Waiyaki (Kenya)

Kenya marine fisheries: The next frontier for economic growth?
J. Njiru, J. O. Omukoto, E. N. Kimani, C. M. Aura, M. Van der Knaap (Kenya)

GLOW 9 Synthesis: Blue Economy, a long way to go
M. Van der Knaap, M. Munawar, J. Njiru (Ethiopia)

Joe Leach: In Memoriam
Articles by M. Munawar, E. Mills, G. D. Haffner, W. G. Sprules, J. Hartig, T. B. Johnson, M. Fitzpatrick, D. Stanley
 
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Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 24, no. 2
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021

In This Issue

State of Aquatic Invasive Species in India: Past, present and future

Editorial
Prelude
Foreword
Preface

Aquatic invasive species status in India
State of invasive aquatic species in tropical India: An overview
A. K. Singh (India)

Changing food webs of Indian aquatic ecosystems under the threats of invasive species: An overview
P. Panikkar, M. Feroz Khan, U.K. Sarkar, and B.K. Das (India)

Regional status of aquatic invasive species in India
Spatial assemblage and interference competition of introduced Brown Trout (Salmo trutta fario) in a Himalayan river network: Implications for native fish conservation
A. Sharma, V. K. Dubey, J. A. Johnson, Y. K. Rawal, and K. Sivakumar (India)

MaxEnt distribution modeling for predicting Oreochromis niloticus invasion into the Ganga river system, India and conservation concern of native fish biodiversity
A. K. Singh, S. C. Srivastava, and P. Verma (India)

Establishment and impact of exotic Cyprinus carpio (Common Carp) on native fish diversity in Buxar stretch of River Ganga, India
A. Ray, C. Johnson, R. K. Manna, R. Baitha, S. D. Gupta, N. K. Tiwari, H. S. Swain, and B. K. Das (India)

Distribution of alien invasive species in aquatic ecosystems of the southern Western Ghats, India
S. Raj, P. Prakash, R. Reghunath, J. C. Tharian, R. Raghavan, and A. B. Kumar (India)

Invasion and potential risks of introduced exotic aquatic species in Indian islands
C. Raghunathan, T. Mondal, and K. Chandra (India)

Management of aquatic invasive species in India
Management of alien aquatic invasive species: Strategic guidelines and policy in India
A. K. Singh (India)

Stakeholder perceptions and strategies for management of non-native freshwater fishes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India
R. Kiruba-Sankar, J. Praveenraj, K. Saravanan, K L. Kumar, H. Haridas, U. Biswas (India)

Managements strategies to regulate the introduction of exotic ornamental fish, the silent invaders of freshwater ecosystems in India
T. T. A. Kumar and K. K. Lal (India)

Contributed Articles
Bioaccumulation of trace elements in migratory waterbirds at two wetlands of Indus river
M. A. Ashraf and Z. Ali (Pakistan)

Seasonal variation of heavy metal accumulation in environment and fishes from the Cirebon coast, Indonesia
H. I. Januar, Dwiyitno, and I. Hidayah (Indonesia)

Evaluation of the effect of carbamazepine on the concentration of vitellogenin in Pseudoplatystoma magdaleniatum
S. M. Cacua Ortiz, N. J. Aguirre, and G. A. Peñuela (Colombia)

Classification of Typha-dominated wetlands using airborne hyperspectral imagery along Lake Ontario, USA
G. M. Suir, D. A. Wilcox, and M. Reif (USA)
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Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 24, no. 3
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021

CONTENTS
Climate change and changing Indian fisheries in the 21st century: Vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation

Foreword
Preface

Impact of climate change on Indian fisheries
Research advances in climate and environmental change impacts on inland fisheries of India: status, vulnerability, and mitigation strategies
U. K. Sarkar and B. K. Das (India)

Invasion meltdown and burgeoning threats of invasive fish species in inland waters of India in the era of climate change
A. K. Singh and S. C. Srivastava (India)

Impacts of climate change and adaptations in shrimp aquaculture: A study in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India
M.Muralidhar, M. Kumaran, M. Jayanthi, J. Syama Dayal, J. Ashok Kumar,R.Saraswathy, and A. Nagavel (India)

Effect of extreme climatic events on fish seed production in Lower Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, India: Constraint analysis and adaptive strategies
B. K. Bhattacharjya, A. K. Yadav, D. Debnath, B. J. Saud, V. K. Verma, S. Yengkokpam, U. K. Sarkar, and B. K. Das (India)

Impact of climate change on Indian wetlands and fisheries
Floodplain wetlands of eastern India in a changing climate: Trophic characterization, ecological status, and implications for fisheries
M.Puthiyottil, U. K. Sarkar, L. Lianthuamluaia, G. Karnatak, M. A. Hassan, S. Kumari,B.D. Ghosh, and B. K. Das (India)

Ecosystem vulnerability of floodplain wetlands of the Lower Brahmaputra Valley to climatic and anthropogenic factors
D. Debnath, B. K. Bhattacharjya, S. Yengkokpam, U. K. Sarkar, P. Paul, B. K. Das (India)

Dynamics of river flows towards sustaining floodplain wetland fisheries under climate change: A case study
A. K. Sahoo, B. K. Das, L. Lianthuamluaia, R. K. Raman, D. K. Meena, C. M. Roshith, A. R. Chowdhury, S. R. Choudhury, and D. Sadhukhan (India)

Enhancing adaptive capacity of wetland fishers through pen culture in the face of changing climate: A study from a tropical wetland, India
G. Karnatak, U. K. Sarkar, M. Puthiyottil, L. Lianthuamluaia, B. D. Ghosh, S. Bakshi, A. K. Das, and B. K. Das (India)

Impact of climate change-induced challenges on fisheries in the North Eastern Region of India and the way ahead
B. C. Borah (India)

Contributed Articles
Response of extreme significant wave height to climate change in the South China Sea and northern Indian Ocean
Y. Luo, H. Shi and W. Wang (China)

Pattern of spatio-temporal fish diversity in association with habitat gradients in a tropical reservoir, India
R. V. Leela, S. M. Salim, J. Parakkandi, P. Panikkar, K. Mani, V. M. Eregowda, U. K. Sarkar, and B. K. Das (India)
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Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 24, no. 4
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021

Contents
Ecosystem health and fisheries of Indian inland waters: Ecology and socio-economics - Part 1 (AEHMS 12)


Foreword
Prelude
Preface

Ecology of inland waters
Exploring microbiome from sediments of River Ganga using a metagenomic approach
B. K. Behera, P. Sahu, A. K. Rout, P. K. Parida, D. J. Sarkar, N. K. Kaushik, A. R. Rao, A.Rai, B. K. Das, T. Mohapatra (India)

Assessment of heavy metal contaminations in water and sediment of River Godavari, India
S.Samanta, V. Kumar, S. K. Nag, K. Saha, A.M. Sajina, S. Bhowmick, S. K. Paul, andB. K. Das (India)

Influence of riverine connectivity on phytoplankton abundance and diversity of associated wetlands of River Ganga: A comparative study of an open and a closed wetland
S.Bayen, T. R. Mohanty, T. N. Chanu, C. Johnson, N. K. Tiwari, R. K. Manna,H. S. Swain, B. K. Das (India)

Assessing the influence of environmental factors on fish assemblage and spatial diversity in an unexplored subtropical Jargo reservoir of the Ganga River basin
A.Alam, J. Kumar, U. K. Sarkar, D. N. Jha, S. C. S. Das, S. K. Srivastava, V. Kumar,B. K. Das (India)

Impact of fish stock enhancement on fish yield of floodplain wetlands in different agro-climatic zones of Assam, India
A. K. Yadav, K. K. Das, S. Borah, P. Das, B. K. Bhattacharjya, B. K. Das (India)

Status of biodiversity and limno-chemistry of Deepor Beel, a Ramsar site of international importance: Conservation needs and the way forward
B. K. Bhattacharjya, B. J. Saud, S. Borah, P. K. Saikia, and B. K. Das (India)

Socio-economics
Resilience of inland fishers against nature’s fury: A study on effect of extremely severe cyclone Fani on socio-economy and livelihood of fishers’ household in Odisha, India
A. Pandit, A. Saha, L. Chakraborty, H. S. Swain, S. K. Sharma, B. P. Mohanty, and B. K. Das (India)

An overview of enclosure culture in inland open waters: Responding to socio-economic, ecological and climate change issues in inland fisheries
D. Debnath, B.K. Bhattacharjya, S. Yengkokpam, U.K. Sarkar, M.A. Hassan, A.K. Das, and B.K. Das (India)

Contributed Articles
The effects of hydrology on macroinvertebrate traits in river channel and wetland habitats
I. Growns, I. W. Tsoi, M. Southwell, S. Mika, S. Lewis, B. Vincent (Australia)

Evaluating the use of hyperspectral imagery to calculate raster-based wetland vegetation condition indicator
G. M. Suir and D. A. Wilcox (USA)

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Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 25, no. 1
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2022

CONTENTS

Ecosystem services of fish and fisheries: Social, cultural, and economic perspective Part 1 - North and South America

Forward
Preface

North America
From fragments to connections to restoration: A case history of emergent sociocultural services in the Clark Fork River and Lake Pend Oreille fishery
C. E. Corsi, M. P. Corsi, K. E. Wallen, K. A. Bouwens, P. C. Kusnierz, K. E. Shaw, N. E. Hall, J. S. Maroney, J. S. Williams (USA)

Cultural and educational releases of salmon in areas blocked by major hydroelectric projects on the Columbia River
C. Baldwin, C. Giorgi, T. Biladeau (USA)

Reconnecting people to the Detroit River – A transboundary effort
J. H. Hartig, T. Scott, G. Gell, and K. Berk (Canada/USA)

Freshwater and fisheries: The need for comparative valuation
D. Bartley (USA)

More than ponds amid skyscrapers: Urban fisheries as multiscalar human-natural systems
A. K. Carlson, W. J. Boonstra, S. Joosse, D. I. Rubenstein, S. A. Levin (USA)

South America
Quantifying fish catches and fish consumption in the Amazon Basin
A. Sirén and J. Valbo-Jørgensen (Ecuador)

Ecosystem services in the floodplains: socio-cultural services associated with ecosystem unpredictability in the Pantanal wetland, Brazil
R. M. Chiaravalloti, F. Bolzan, F. de Oliveira Roque, S. Biswas (USA)

Contributed papers
Half a century of dedicated research for the sake of the lakes: A record of the celebration for Mohiuddin Munawar by Fisheries and Oceans Canada
M. Van der Knaap (Kenya)

Influence of coastal engineering on the intertidal macrobenthic community in the Dongtou Islands, China
Y. Tang, Y. Liao, L. Shou, C. Li (China)

Autonomous underwater glider observations in southern Lake Ontario and Niagara River plume
P. McKinney, T. Hollenhorst, J. Hoffman (USA)
 
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Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 25, no. 2
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2022

CONTENTS
Ecosystem health and fisheries of Indian inland waters: Fisheries and biodiversity - Part 2 (AEHMS 12)

Application of the Laurentian Great Lakes ‘Ecosystem Approach’ towards remediation and restoration of the mighty River Ganges, India
M. Munawar, M. Fitzpatrick, I.F. Munawar (Canada)

Fisheries and Biodiversity
Genetic diversity study of three Indian major carps from four riverine ecosystems
B.K. Behera, V. S. Baisvar, A.K. Rout, P. Paria, P. K. Parida, D.K. Meena, P. Das, B. Sahu, B.K. Das, J. Jena (India)

Development and validation of fish-based index of biotic integrity for assessing ecological health of Indian rivers Mahanadi and Kathajodi-Devi
A.M. Sajina, D. Sudheesan, S. Samanta, S. K. Paul, S. Bhowmick, S. K. Nag, V. Kumar (India)

Fishery and population dynamics of Otolithoides pama (Hamilton, 1822) from Hooghly-Matlah Estuary of West Bengal, India
D. Bhakta, S.K. Das, B.K. Das, T.S. Nagesh, and B.K. Behera (India)

On the population characteristics of anadromous Tenualosa ilisha (Hamilton, 1822) occurring from River Brahmaputra, India
S. Borah, G. Vaisakh, A.K. Jaiswar, B.K. Bhattacharjya, A.K. Sahoo, G. Deshmukhe, B.K. Behera, D.K. Meena, P. Das, and B.K. Das (India)

Fish diversity and assemblage structure along the river-estuary continuum in the River Cauvery, India
C. M. Roshith, R. K. Manna, S. Samanta, V. R. Suresh, Lohith Kumar, S. Sibinamol, S. K. Sharma, A. Roy Choudhury, M. E. Vijayakumar, and B. K. Das (India)

Fish diversity, community structure, and environmental variables of River Tamas, a tributary of River Ganga, India
S. C. S. Das, D.N. Jha, V. Kumar, A. Alam, K. Srivastava, A.K. Sahoo, and B.K. Das (India)

E-Flow estimation through a hydrology-based method in the Tamas River at Bakiya Barrage, Madhya Pradesh, India
D.N. Jha, S.C.S. Das, K. Srivastava, V. Kumar, A.K. Sahoo, R. S. Srivastava, B.K. Das (India)

Ecosystem Health and Fisheries of Indian Inland Waters (AEHMS 12), Pantnagar, Utterakhand, India, February 17-19, 2020: Declaration and final recommendations of the conference

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Contributed Papers
Model development in support of the Lake Ontario Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative
Y. Hui, D. Schlea, J. Atkinson, Z. Zhu, and T. Redder (USA)
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Arid Lands in Perspective
Edited by William G. McGinnies and Bram J. Goldman
University of Arizona Press, 1969
Library of Congress S613.A7 | Dewey Decimal 630.9154

These articles represent the combined efforts of many people with varied orientations to summarize aspects of current research and knowledge relevant for the multitudes attempting to inhabit Earth’s warm arid areas, known for their imbalance of natural resources.
 
Contributors:

Michel Batisse
William A. Dick-Peddie
Carl N. Hodges
Richard F. Logan
Roy E. Cameron
Clifford S. Christian
Klaus W. Flach
Ronald L. Heathcote
Douglas H. K. Lee
Lawrence K. Lustig
William G. McGinnies
Peveril Meigs
James T. Neal
Daniel A. Okun
Harland I. Padfield
Patricia Paylore
Rayden A. Perry
Roald A. Peterson
Robert L. Raikes
Courtland L. Smith
Guy D. Smith
Andrew Warren
John C. York
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Armadillos to Ziziphus: A Naturalist in the Texas Hill Country
David M. Hillis, foreword by Harry W. Greene
University of Texas Press, 2023
Library of Congress QH105.T49H55 2023 | Dewey Decimal 577.09764

A collection of essays on the ecology, biodiversity, and restoration of the Texas Hill Country.

For most of five decades, evolutionary biologist David Hillis has studied the biodiversity of the Texas Hill Country. Since the 1990s, he has worked to restore the natural beauty and diversity of his Mason County ranch, the Double Helix. In his excursions around his ranch and across the Edwards Plateau, Hillis came to realize how little most people know about the plants and animals around them or their importance to our everyday lives. He began thinking about how natural history is connected to our enjoyment of life, especially in a place as beautiful and beloved as the Hill Country, which, not coincidentally, happens to be one of the most biodiverse parts of Texas.

Featuring short nontechnical essays accompanied by vivid color photos, Armadillos to Ziziphus is a charming and casual introduction to the environment of the region. Whether walking the pasture with his Longhorn cattle, explaining the ecological significance of microscopic organisms in springtime mud puddles, or marveling at the local Ziziphus (aka Lotebush, a spiny shrub), Hillis guides first-time visitors and long-term residents alike in an appreciation for the Hill Country’s natural beauty and diversity.

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Armies and Ecosystems in Premodern Europe: The Meuse Region, 1250-1850
Sander Govaerts
Arc Humanities Press, 2021

Using the ecosystem concept as his starting point, the author examines the complex relationship between premodern armed forces and their environment at three levels: landscapes, living beings, and diseases. The study focuses on Europe’s Meuse Region, well-known among historians of war as a battleground between France and Germany. By analyzing soldiers’ long-term interactions with nature, this book engages with current debates about the ecological impact of the military, and provides new impetus for contemporary armed forces to make greater effort to reduce their environmental footprint.
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Army Ants: Nature’s Ultimate Social Hunters
Daniel J. C. Kronauer
Harvard University Press, 2020
Library of Congress QL568.F7K76 2020 | Dewey Decimal 595.796

A richly illustrated, captivating study of army ants, nature’s preeminent social hunters.

A swarm raid is one of nature’s great spectacles. In tropical rainforests around the world, army ants march in groups by the thousands to overwhelm large solitary invertebrates, along with nests of termites, wasps, and other ants. They kill and dismember their prey and carry it back to their nest, where their hungry brood devours it. They are the ultimate social hunters, demonstrating the most fascinating collective behavior.

In Army Ants we see how these insects play a crucial role in promoting and sustaining the biodiversity of tropical ecosystems. The ants help keep prey communities in check while also providing nutrition for other animals. Many species depend on army ants for survival, including a multitude of social parasites, swarm-following birds, and flies. And while their hunting behavior, and the rules that govern it, are clearly impressive, army ants display collective behavior in other ways that are no less dazzling. They build living nests, called bivouacs, using their bodies to protect the queen and larvae. The ants can even construct bridges over open space or obstacles by linking to one another using their feet. These incredible feats happen without central coordination. They are the result of local interactions—self-organization that benefits the society at large.

Through observations, stories, and stunning images, Daniel Kronauer brings these fascinating creatures to life. Army ants may be small, but their collective intelligence and impact on their environment are anything but.

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The Art of Being a Parasite
Claude Combes
University of Chicago Press, 2005
Library of Congress QL757.C614513 2005 | Dewey Decimal 577.857

Parasites are a masterful work of evolutionary art. The tiny mite Histiostoma laboratorium, a parasite of Drosophila, launches itself, in an incredible display of evolutionary engineering, like a surface-to-air missile at a fruit fly far above its head. Gravid mussels such as Lampsilis ventricosa undulate excitedly as they release their parasitic larval offspring, conning greedy predators in search of a tasty meal into hosting the parasite.

The Art of Being a Parasite is an extensive collection of these and other wonderful and weird stories that illuminate the ecology and evolution of interactions between species. Claude Combes illustrates what it means to be a parasite by considering every stage of its interactions, from invading to reproducing and leaving the host. An accessible and engaging follow-up to Combes's Parasitism, this book will be of interest to both scholars and nonspecialists in the fields of biodiversity, natural history, ecology, public health, and evolution.
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Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice
Edited by Vicky M. Temperton, Richard J. Hobbs, Tim Nuttle, and Stefan Halle
Island Press, 2004
Library of Congress QH541.15.R45A88 2004 | Dewey Decimal 333.7153

Understanding how ecosystems are assembled -- how the species that make up a particular biological community arrive in an area, survive, and interact with other species -- is key to successfully restoring degraded ecosystems. Yet little attention has been paid to the idea of assembly rules in ecological restoration,
in both the scientific literature and in on-the-ground restoration efforts.

Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology, edited by Vicky M. Temperton, Richard J. Hobbs, Tim Nuttle, and Stefan Halle, addresses that shortcoming, offering an introduction, overview, and synthesis of the potential role of assembly rules theory in restoration ecology. It brings together information and ideas relating to ecosystem assembly in a restoration context, and includes material from a wide geographic range and a variety of perspectives.

Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology contributes new knowledge and ideas to the subjects of assembly rules and restoration ecology and represents an important summary of the current status of an emerging field. It combines theoretical and practical aspects of restoration, making it a vital compendium of information and ideas for restoration ecologists, professionals, and practitioners.


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Asserting Native Resilience: Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Face the Climate Crisis
Edited by Zoltán Grossman and Alan Parker
Oregon State University Press, 2012
Library of Congress GF798.A77 2012 | Dewey Decimal 363.73874091823

Indigenous nations are on the front line of the climate crisis. With cultures and economies among the most vulnerable to climate-related catastrophes, Native peoples are developing twenty-first century responses to climate change that serve as a model for Natives and non-Native communities alike.

Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Indigenous peoples around the Pacific Rim have already been deeply affected by droughts, flooding, reduced glaciers and snowmelts, seasonal shifts in winds and storms, and the northward movement of species on the land and in the ocean. Using tools of resilience, Native peoples are creating defenses to strengthen their communities, mitigate losses, and adapt where possible.

Asserting Native Resilience presents a rich variety of perspectives on Indigenous responses to the climate crisis, reflecting the voices of more than twenty contributors, including tribal leaders, scientists, scholars, and activists from the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, Alaska, and Aotearoa / New Zealand, and beyond. Also included is a resource directory of Indigenous governments, NGOs, and communities and a community organizing booklet for use by Northwest tribes.


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At the Desert's Green Edge: An Ethnobotany of the Gila River Pima
Amadeo M. Rea; With a Foreword by Gary Paul Nabhan; Sumi-e Illustrations by Takashi Ijichi; Linguistic Consultant Culver Cassa
University of Arizona Press, 1997
Library of Congress E99.P6R43 1997 | Dewey Decimal 581.63097917

Winner of the Society for Economic Botany’s Klinger Book Award

The Akimel O'odham, or Pima Indians, of the northern Sonoran Desert continue to make their home along Arizona's Gila River despite the alarming degradation of their habitat that has occurred over the past century. The oldest living Pimas can recall a lush riparian ecosystem and still recite more than two hundred names for plants in their environment, but they are the last generation who grew up subsisting on cultivated native crops or wild-foraged plants. Ethnobiologist Amadeo M. Rea has written the first complete ethnobotany of the Gila River Pima and has done so from the perspective of the Pimas themselves.

At the Desert's Green Edge weaves the Pima view of the plants found in their environment with memories of their own history and culture, creating a monumental testament to their traditions and way of life. Rea first discusses the Piman people, environment, and language, then proceeds to share their botanical knowledge in entries for 240 plants that systematically cover information on economic botany, folk taxonomy, and linguistics. The entries are organized according to Pima life-form categories such as plants growing in water, eaten greens, and planted fruit trees. All are anecdotal, conveying the author's long personal involvement with the Pimas, whether teaching in their schools or learning from them in conversations and interviews.

At the Desert's Green Edge is an archive of otherwise unavailable plant lore that will become a benchmark for botanists and anthropologists. Enhanced by more than one hundred brush paintings of plants, it is written to be equally useful to nonspecialists so that the Pimas themselves can turn to it as a resource regarding their former lifeways. More than an encyclopedia of facts, it is the Pimas' own story, a witness to a changing way of life in the Sonoran Desert.
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Atlas of Coastal Ecosystems in the Western Gulf of California: Tracking Limestone Deposits on the Margin of a Young Sea
Edited by Markes E. Johnson and Jorge Ledesma-Vásquez
University of Arizona Press, 2009
Library of Congress QE471.15.C3A866 2009 | Dewey Decimal 552.5809722

The Gulf of California is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but it is also important to earth and marine scientists who work far beyond the area. In text and an accompanying CD-ROM with stunning satellite images, this atlas captures the dynamics of natural cycles in the fertility of the Gulf of California that have been in near-continuous operation for more than five million years. The book is designed to answer key questions that link the health of coastal ecosystems with the region’s evolutionary history: What was the richness of “fossil” ecosystems in the Gulf of California? How has it changed over time? Which ecosystems are most amenable to conservation?

With an emphasis on the intricate workings of the Gulf, a team of scientists led by Markes E. Johnson and Jorge Ledesma-Vázquez explores how marine invertebrates such as corals and bivalves, as well as certain algae, contribute to the operation of a vast “organic engine” that acts as a significant carbon trap. The Atlas reveals that the role of these organisms in the ecology of the Gulf was greatly underestimated in the past. The organisms that live in these environments (or provide the sediments for beaches and dunes) are mass producers of calcium carbonate. Until now, no book has considered the centrality of calcium carbonate production as it functions today across multiple ecosystems and how it has evolved over time.

An important work of scholarship that also evokes the region’s natural splendor, the Atlas will be of interest to a wide range of scientists, including geologists, paleontologists, marine biologists, ecologists, and conservation biologists.
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Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes
Amy Eisenberg
University of Alabama Press, 2013
Library of Congress F2230.A9E57 2013 | Dewey Decimal 305.898324083

Explores the relationship between indigenous people, the management of natural resources, and the development process in a modernizing region of Chile
 
Aymara Indians are a geographically isolated, indigenous people living in the Andes Mountains near Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of the most arid regions of the world. As rapid economic growth in the area has begun to divert scarce water to hydroelectric and agricultural projects, the Aymara struggle to maintain their sustainable and traditional systems of water use, agriculture, and pastoralism.

In Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes, Amy Eisenberg provides a detailed exploration of the ethnoecological dimensions of the tension between the Aymara, whose economic, spiritual, and social life are inextricably tied to land and water, and three major challenges: the paving of Chile Highway 11, the diversion of the Altiplano waters of the Río Lauca for irrigation and power-generation, and Chilean national park policies regarding Aymara communities, their natural resources, and cultural properties within Parque Nacional Lauca, the International Biosphere Reserve.

Pursuing collaborative research, Eisenberg performed ethnographic interviews with Aymara people in more than sixteen Andean villages, some at altitudes of 4,600 meters. Drawing upon botany, agriculture, natural history, physical and cultural geography, history, archaeology, and social and environmental impact assessment, she presents deep, multifaceted insights from the Aymara’s point of view.

Illustrated with maps and dramatic photographs by John Amato, Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes provides an account of indigenous perspectives and concerns related to economic development that will be invaluable to scholars and policy-makers in the fields of natural and cultural resource preservation in and beyond Chile.
 
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742 books about Ecology and 48 742 books about Ecology
 48
 start with A  start with A
Abundant Earth
Toward an Ecological Civilization
Eileen Crist
University of Chicago Press, 2019
In Abundant Earth, Eileen Crist not only documents the rising tide of biodiversity loss, but also lays out the drivers of this wholesale destruction and how we can push past them. Looking beyond the familiar litany of causes—a large and growing human population, rising livestock numbers, expanding economies and international trade, and spreading infrastructures and incursions upon wildlands—she asks the key question: if we know human expansionism is to blame for this ecological crisis, why are we not taking the needed steps to halt our expansionism?

Crist argues that to do so would require a two-pronged approach. Scaling down calls upon us to lower the global human population while working within a human-rights framework, to deindustrialize food production, and to localize economies and contract global trade. Pulling back calls upon us to free, restore, reconnect, and rewild vast terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, the pervasive worldview of human supremacy—the conviction that humans are superior to all other life-forms and entitled to use these life-forms and their habitats—normalizes and promotes humanity’s ongoing expansion, undermining our ability to enact these linked strategies and preempt the mounting suffering and dislocation of both humans and nonhumans.

Abundant Earth urges us to confront the reality that humanity will not advance by entrenching its domination over the biosphere. On the contrary, we will stagnate in the identity of nature-colonizer and decline into conflict as we vie for natural resources. Instead, we must chart another course, choosing to live in fellowship within the vibrant ecologies of our wild and domestic cohorts, and enfolding human inhabitation within the rich expanse of a biodiverse, living planet.
[more]

Adaptation in Metapopulations
How Interaction Changes Evolution
Michael J. Wade
University of Chicago Press, 2016
All organisms live in clusters, but such fractured local populations, or demes, nonetheless maintain connectivity with one another by some amount of gene flow between them. Most such metapopulations occur naturally, like clusters of amphibians in vernal ponds or baboon troops spread across the African veldt. Others have been created as human activities fragment natural landscapes, as in stands of trees separated by roads. As landscape change has accelerated, understanding how these metapopulations function—and specifically how they adapt—has become crucial to ecology and to our very understanding of evolution itself.

With Adaptation in Metapopulations, Michael J. Wade explores a key component of this new understanding of evolution: interaction. Synthesizing decades of work in the lab and in the field in a book both empirically grounded and underpinned by a strong conceptual framework, Wade looks at the role of interaction across scales from gene selection to selection at the level of individuals, kin, and groups. In so doing, he integrates molecular and organismal biology to reveal the true complexities of evolutionary dynamics from genes to metapopulations.
[more]

Affective Ecologies
Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative
Alexa Weik von Mossner
The Ohio State University Press, 2017
Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative explores our emotional engagement with environmental narrative. Focusing on the American cultural context, Alexa Weik von Mossner develops an ecocritical approach that draws on the insights of affective science and cognitive narratology. This approach helps to clarify how we interact with environmental narratives in ways that are both biologically universal and culturally specific. In doing so, it pays particular attention to the thesis that our minds are both embodied (in a physical body) and embedded (in a physical environment), not only when we interact with the real world but also in our engagement with imaginary worlds.
 
How do we experience the virtual environments we encounter in literature and film on the sensory and emotional level? How do environmental narratives invite us to care for human and nonhuman others who are put at risk? And how do we feel about the speculative futures presented to us in ecotopian and ecodystopian texts? Weik von Mossner explores these central questions that are important to anyone with an interest in the emotional appeal and persuasive power of environmental narratives.
 
[more]

African Sacred Groves
Ecological Dynamics and Social Change
Michael J. Sheridan
Ohio University Press, 2007
In western scholarship, Africa’s so-called sacred forests are often treated as the remains of primeval forests, ethnographic curiosities, or cultural relics from a static precolonial past. Their continuing importance in African societies, however, shows that this “relic theory” is inadequate for understanding current social and ecological dynamics. African Sacred Groves challenges dominant views of these landscape features by redefining the subject matter beyond the compelling yet uninformative term “sacred.” The term “ethnoforests” incorporates the environmental, social-political, and symbolic aspects of these forests without giving undue primacy to their religious values. This interdisciplinary
book by an international group of scholars and conservation practitioners provides a methodological framework for understanding these forests by examining their ecological characteristics, delineating how they relate to social dynamics and historical contexts, exploring their ideological aspects, and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses as sites for community-based resource management and the conservation of cultural and biological diversity.
[more]

African Universities and the COVID-19 Pandemic
José Jackson-Malete
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021
Prologue
Context and Rationale for the Thought Pieces on COVID-19 Response in Africa
Paul Tiyambe Zeleza

Section 1: COVID-19 Pandemic: Responses and Lessons Learnt from AAP African Universities
AAP Universities’ Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned and Shared
Samuel L. Stanley, Jr., Tawana Kupe, Ibrahima Thioub, David Norris, and Rose Mwonya

Reflections on University Education in Uganda and the COVID-19 Pandemic Shock: Responses and Lessons Learned
Barnabas Nawangwe, Anthony Mugagga Muwagga, Mukadasi Buyinza, and Fred Masaazi Masagazi

COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria: Lessons on Responsibility, University Leadership, and Navigating the New Normal
Olanike K. Adeyemo, Selim A. Alarape, Victoria O. Adetunji, and David T. Afolayan

Facing COVID-19 Pandemic Learning/Teaching Challenges: Lessons and Perspectives from Malian Universities
Fatoumata Keïta, Binta Koïta, Aboubacar Niamabélé, and Welore Tamboura

Strategies of the Dominican University Nigeria in Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic
Obiageli C. Okoye

Efforts to Preserve Educational Access, Research, and Public Service Relevance at the University of Dar es Salaam in the Age of COVID-19
Lulu T. Kaaya, William A. L. Anangisye, Bonaventure Rutinwa, and Bernadetha Killian

The Future of Continental and International Collaborations at the University of Nigeria after COVID-19
Charles A. Igwe, Anthonia I. Achike, and Bennett C. Nwanguma

Section 2: Social and Psychological Impacts of COVID-19 in the African HEI Context
Exploring the Gendered Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Academic Staff in Tanzania
Perpetua J. Urio, Susan P. Murphy, Ikupa Moses, Consolata Chua, and Immanuel Darkwa
The Mental and Psychosocial Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on University Faculty and Students
Ruthie C. Rono and Lucy Waithera Kung’u

Coping with the Impact of COVID-19 in Higher Education: Responses and Recommendations from the University of Botswana
Lucky Odirile

African Women Scientists’ COVID-Related Experiences: Reflecting on the Challenges and Suggesting Ways Forward
Olubukola Oluranti Babalola, Stephenie Chinwe Alaribe, Olabimpe Ajoke Olatunji, Pendo Nandiga Bigambo, Sunday Samson Babalola, Adenike Eunice Amoo, Mercy Olajumoke Kutu, Inutu Katoti, Hazel Tumelo Mufhandu, and Helen Orisaghe Imarfidor

Locked Down during the Lockdown
Egodi Uchendu, Amuche Nnabueze, and Elizabeth Onogwu

Section 3: Stories of Innovative Approaches to Issues of Access to Education and Research in the African HEI Context During and Beyond
Looking into Africa’s Future: The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Role of ICT Education
Romain Murenzi, Max Paoli, Sena Galazzi, and Sean Treacy

A Community-University Partnership: Responding to COVID-19 in South Africa via the University of Pretoria’s Community Engagement Initiative
Martina Jordaan and Nita Mennega

Pre- and Post-COVID-19: Exploring Issues of Access in Higher Education in Botswana and Ghana
Gbolagade Adekanmbi, Joseph Ammoti Kasozi, Christinah Seabelo, and Changu Batisani

Business Repositioning at Botswana Open University in the Face of COVID-19
Sunny Enow Aiyuk, Lekopanye Lacic Tladi, and Freeson Kaniwa

COVID-19 and African Civil Society Organizations: Impact and Responses
Shaninomi Eribo

Epilogue
Future Directions: Next Generation of Partnerships for Africa’s Post-COVID World
Richard Mkandawire, Amy Jamison, and José Jackson-Malete
[more]

Afrofuturisms
Ecology, Humanity, and Francophone Cultural Expressions
Isaac Vincent Joslin
Ohio University Press, 2023

An exploration of Francophone African literary imaginations and expressions through the lens of Afrofuturism

Generally attributed to the Western imagination, science fiction is a literary genre that has expressed projected technological progress since the Industrial Revolution. However, certain fantastical elements in African literary expressions lend themselves to science fiction interpretations, both utopian and dystopian. When the concept of science is divorced from its Western, rationalist, materialist, positivist underpinnings, science fiction represents a broad imaginative space that supersedes the limits of this world. Whether it be on the moon, under the sea, or elsewhere within the imaginative universe, Afrofuturist readings of select films, novels, short stories, plays, and poems reveal a similarly emancipatory African future that is firmly rooted in its own cultural mythologies, cosmologies, and philosophies.

Isaac Joslin identifies the contours and modalities of a speculative, futurist science fiction rooted in the sociocultural and geopolitical context of continental African imaginaries. Constructing an arc that begins with gender identity and cultural plurality as the bases for an inherently multicultural society, this project traces the essential role of language and narrativity in processing traumas that stem from the violence of colonial and neocolonial interventions in African societies.

Joslin then outlines the influential role of discursive media that construct divisions and create illusions about societal success, belonging, and exclusion, while also identifying alternative critical existential mythologies that promote commonality and social solidarity. The trajectory proceeds with a critical analysis of the role of education in affirming collective identity in the era of globalization; the book also assesses the market-driven violence that undermines efforts to instill and promote cultural and social autonomy.

Last, this work proposes an egalitarian and ecological ethos of communal engagement with and respect for the diversity of the human and natural worlds.

[more]

After Preservation
Saving American Nature in the Age of Humans
Edited by Ben A. Minteer and Stephen J. Pyne
University of Chicago Press, 2015
From John Muir to David Brower, from the creation of Yellowstone National Park to the Endangered Species Act, environmentalism in America has always had close to its core a preservationist ideal. Generations have been inspired by its ethos—to encircle nature with our protection, to keep it apart, pristine, walled against the march of human development. But we have to face the facts. Accelerating climate change, rapid urbanization, agricultural and industrial devastation, metastasizing fire regimes, and other quickening anthropogenic forces all attest to the same truth: the earth is now spinning through the age of humans. After Preservation takes stock of the ways we have tried to both preserve and exploit nature to ask a direct but profound question: what is the role of preservationism in an era of seemingly unstoppable human development, in what some have called the Anthropocene?
           
Ben A. Minteer and Stephen J. Pyne bring together a stunning consortium of voices comprised of renowned scientists, historians, philosophers, environmental writers, activists, policy makers, and land managers to negotiate the incredible challenges that environmentalism faces. Some call for a new, post-preservationist model, one that is far more pragmatic, interventionist, and human-centered. Others push forcefully back, arguing for a more chastened and restrained vision of human action on the earth. Some try to establish a middle ground, while others ruminate more deeply on the meaning and value of wilderness. Some write on species lost, others on species saved, and yet others discuss the enduring practical challenges of managing our land, water, and air.

From spirited optimism to careful prudence to critical skepticism, the resulting range of approaches offers an inspiring contribution to the landscape of modern environmentalism, one driven by serious, sustained engagements with the critical problems we must solve if we—and the wild garden we may now keep—are going to survive the era we have ushered in.  

Contributors include: Chelsea K. Batavia, F. Stuart (Terry) Chapin III, Norman L. Christensen, Jamie Rappaport Clark, William Wallace Covington, Erle C. Ellis, Mark Fiege, Dave Foreman, Harry W. Greene, Emma Marris, Michelle Marvier, Bill McKibben, J. R. McNeill, Curt Meine, Ben A. Minteer, Michael Paul Nelson, Bryan Norton, Stephen J. Pyne, Andrew C. Revkin, Holmes Rolston III, Amy Seidl, Jack Ward Thomas, Diane J. Vosick, John A. Vucetich, Hazel Wong, and Donald Worster. 
[more]

After the Wildfire
Ten Years of Recovery from the Willow Fire
John Alcock
University of Arizona Press, 2017

Swallowtail butterflies frolic on the wind. Vireos and rock wrens sing their hearts out by the recovering creek. Spiders and other predators chase their next meal. Through it all, John Alcock observes, records, and delights in what he sees. In a once-burnt area, life resurges. Plants whose seeds and roots withstood an intense fire become habitat for the returning creatures of the wild. After the Wildfire describes the remarkable recovery of wildlife in the Mazatzal Mountains in central Arizona.

It is the rare observer who has the dedication to revisit the site of a wildfire, especially over many years and seasons. But naturalist John Alcock returned again and again to the Mazatzals, where the disastrous Willow fire of 2004 burned 187 square miles. Documenting the fire’s aftermath over a decade, Alcock thrills at the renewal of the once-blackened region. Walking the South Fork of Deer Creek in all seasons as the years passed, he was rewarded by the sight of exuberant plant life that in turn fostered an equally satisfying return of animals ranging from small insects to large mammals.

Alcock clearly explains the response of chaparral plants to fire and the creatures that reinhabit these plants as they come back from a ferocious blaze: the great spreadwing damselfly, the western meadowlark, the elk, and birds and bugs of rich and colorful varieties. This book is at once a journey of biological discovery and a celebration of the ability of living things to reoccupy a devastated location. Alcock encourages others to engage the natural world—even one that has burnt to the ground.

[more]

The Albatross and the Fish
Linked Lives in the Open Seas
By Robin W. Doughty and Virginia Carmichael
University of Texas Press, 2011

Breeding on remote ocean islands and spending much of its life foraging for food across vast stretches of seemingly empty seas, the albatross remains a legend for most people. And yet, humans are threatening the albatross family to such an extent that it is currently the most threatened bird group in the world. In this extensively researched, highly readable book, Robin W. Doughty and Virginia Carmichael tell the story of a potentially catastrophic extinction that has been interrupted by an unlikely alliance of governments, conservation groups, and fishermen.

Doughty and Carmichael authoritatively establish that the albatross's fate is linked to the fate of two of the highest-value table fish, Bluefin Tuna and Patagonian Toothfish, which are threatened by unregulated commercial harvesting. The authors tell us that commercial fishing techniques are annually killing tens of thousands of albatrosses. And the authors explain how the breeding biology of albatrosses makes them unable to replenish their numbers at the rate they are being depleted. Doughty and Carmichael set the albatross's fate in the larger context of threats facing the ocean commons, ranging from industrial overfishing to our habit of dumping chemicals, solid waste, and plastic trash into the open seas. They also highlight the efforts of dedicated individuals, environmental groups, fishery management bodies, and governments who are working for seabird and fish conservation and demonstrate that these efforts can lead to sustainable solutions for the iconic seabirds and the entire ocean ecosystem.

[more]

Alchemy in the Rain Forest
Politics, Ecology, and Resilience in a New Guinea Mining Area
Jerry K. Jacka
Duke University Press, 2015
In Alchemy in the Rain Forest Jerry K. Jacka explores how the indigenous population of Papua New Guinea's highlands struggle to create meaningful lives in the midst of extreme social conflict and environmental degradation. Drawing on theories of political ecology, place, and ontology and using ethnographic, environmental, and historical data, Jacka presents a multilayered examination of the impacts large-scale commercial gold mining in the region has had on ecology and social relations. Despite the deadly interclan violence and widespread pollution brought on by mining, the uneven distribution of its financial benefits has led many Porgerans to call for further development. This desire for increased mining, Jacka points out, counters popular portrayals of indigenous people as innate conservationists who defend the environment from international neoliberal development. Jacka's examination of the ways Porgerans search for common ground between capitalist and indigenous ways of knowing and being points to the complexity and interconnectedness of land, indigenous knowledge, and the global economy in Porgera and beyond.
 
[more]

The Alewives' Tale
The Life History and Ecology of River Herring in the Northeast
Barbara Brennessel
University of Massachusetts Press, 2014
While on vacation in 1980, biologist Barbara Brennessel and her family came across an amazing sight: hundreds of small silver fish migrating from the Atlantic Ocean, across a channel connecting two ponds in the town of Wellfleet on Cape Cod. She later learned that these tiny river herring were important for the ecology and economy of the region and that volunteers were counting fewer and fewer fish migrating each year.

The Alewives' Tale describes the plight of alewives and blueback herring, two fish species that have similar life histories and are difficult to distinguish by sight. Collectively referred to as river herring, they have been economically important since colonial times as food, fertilizer, and bait. In recent years they have attracted much attention from environmentalists, especially as attempts are being made, on and beyond Cape Cod, to restore the rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, and estuaries that are crucial for their reproduction and survival.

Brennessel provides an overview of the biology of the fish—from fertilized eggs to large schools of adults that migrate in the Atlantic Ocean—while describing the habitats at different stages of their life history. She explores the causes of the dramatic decline of river herring since the mid-twentieth century and the various efforts to restore these iconic fish to the historic populations that treated many onlookers to spectacular inland migrations each spring.
[more]

Alien Species and Evolution
The Evolutionary Ecology of Exotic Plants, Animals, Microbes, and Interacting Native Species
George W. Cox
Island Press, 2004

In Alien Species and Evolution, biologist George W. Cox reviews and synthesizes emerging information on the evolutionary changes that occur in plants, animals, and microbial organisms when they colonize new geographical areas, and on the evolutionary responses of the native species with which alien species interact.

The book is broad in scope, exploring information across a wide variety of taxonomic groups, trophic levels, and geographic areas. It examines theoretical topics related to rapid evolutionary change and supports the emerging concept that species introduced to new physical and biotic environments are particularly prone to rapid evolution. The author draws on examples from all parts of the world and all major ecosystem types, and the variety of examples used gives considerable insight into the patterns of evolution that are likely to result from the massive introduction of species to new geographic regions that is currently occurring around the globe.

Alien Species and Evolution is the only state-of-the-art review and synthesis available of this critically important topic, and is an essential work for anyone concerned with the new science of invasion biology or the threats posed by invasive species.

[more]

Alien Species in North America and Hawaii
George W. Cox
Island Press, 1999
The world is in the midst of an ecological explosion with devastating implications. Thousands of species of microbes, plants, and animals are being introduced, both deliberately and inadvertently, to new land areas, seas, and freshwaters. In many regions, these new colonists are running wild, disrupting the dynamics of ecosystems, pushing native species toward extinction, and causing billions of dollars in direct economic damages.Alien Species in North America and Hawaii provides a comprehensive overview of the invasive species phenomenon, examining the threats posed and the damage that has already been done to ecosystems across North America and Hawaii. George W. Cox considers both the biological theory underlying invasions and the potential and actual effects on ecosystems and human activities. His book offers a framework for understanding the problem and provides a detailed examination of species and regions. Specific chapters examine: North American invaders and their threats how exotic species are dispersed to new regions how physical and biotic features influence the establishment and spread of invasives patterns of exotic invasions, with separate chapters covering each of the ten most seriously invaded regions and ecosystems patterns of invasiveness exhibited by major groups of exotics the theory of invasive capability of alien species and the resistance of communities to invasion theoretical aspects of ecosystem impacts of invaders and the evolutionary interaction of invaders and natives management and public policy issuesAlien Species in North America and Hawaii offers for the first time an assessment and synthesis of the problem of invasive species in North American and Hawaiian ecosystems. Scientists, conservation professionals, policymakers, and anyone involved with the study and control of invasive species will find the book an essential guide and reference to one of the most serious and widespread threats to global biodiversity.
[more]

All Flesh Is Grass
The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming
Gene Logsdon
Ohio University Press, 2004

Amidst Mad Cow scares and consumer concerns about how farm animals are bred, fed, and raised, many farmers and homesteaders are rediscovering the traditional practice of pastoral farming. Grasses, clovers, and forbs are the natural diet of cattle, horses, and sheep, and are vital supplements for hogs, chickens, and turkeys. Consumers increasingly seek the health benefits of meat from animals raised in green paddocks instead of in muddy feedlots.

In All Flesh Is Grass: The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming, Gene Logsdon explains that well-managed pastures are nutritious and palatable—virtual salads for livestock. Leafy pastures also hold the soil, foster biodiversity, and create lovely landscapes. Grass farming might be the solution for a stressed agricultural system based on an industrial model and propped up by federal subsidies.

In his clear and conversational style, Logsdon explains historically effective practices and new techniques. His warm, informative profiles of successful grass farmers offer inspiration and ideas. His narrative is enriched by his own experience as a “contrary farmer” on his artisan-scale farm near Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

All Flesh Is Grass will have broad appeal to the sustainable commercial farmer, the home-food producer, and all consumers who care about their food.

[more]

Amber Waves
The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop
Catherine Zabinski
University of Chicago Press, 2020
A biography of a staple grain we often take for granted, exploring how wheat went from wild grass to a world-shaping crop.

At breakfast tables and bakeries, we take for granted a grain that has made human civilization possible, a cereal whose humble origins belie its world-shaping power: wheat. Amber Waves tells the story of a group of grass species that first grew in scattered stands in the foothills of the Middle East until our ancestors discovered their value as a source of food. Over thousands of years, we moved their seeds to all but the polar regions of Earth, slowly cultivating what we now know as wheat, and in the process creating a world of cuisines that uses wheat seeds as a staple food. Wheat spread across the globe, but as ecologist Catherine Zabinski shows us, a biography of wheat is not only the story of how plants ensure their own success: from the earliest bread to the most mouthwatering pasta, it is also a story of human ingenuity in producing enough food for ourselves and our communities.

Since the first harvest of the ancient grain, we have perfected our farming systems to grow massive quantities of food, producing one of our species’ global mega crops—but at a great cost to ecological systems. And despite our vast capacity to grow food, we face problems with undernourishment both close to home and around the world. Weaving together history, evolution, and ecology, Zabinski’s tale explores much more than the wild roots and rise of a now-ubiquitous grain: it illuminates our complex relationship with our crops, both how we have transformed the plant species we use as food, and how our society—our culture—has changed in response to the need to secure food sources. From the origins of agriculture to gluten sensitivities, from our first selection of the largest seeds from wheat’s wild progenitors to the sequencing of the wheat genome and genetic engineering, Amber Waves sheds new light on how we grow the food that sustains so much human life.
[more]

The Amboseli Elephants
A Long-Term Perspective on a Long-Lived Mammal
Edited by Cynthia J. Moss, Harvey Croze, and Phyllis C. Lee
University of Chicago Press, 2011

Elephants have fascinated humans for millennia. Aristotle wrote of them with awe; Hannibal used them in warfare; and John Donne called the elephant “Nature’s greatest masterpiece. . . . The only harmless great thing.” Their ivory has been sought after and treasured in most cultures, and they have delighted zoo and circus audiences worldwide for centuries. But it wasn’t until the second half of the twentieth century that people started to take an interest in elephants in the wild, and some of the most important studies of these intelligent giants have been conducted at Amboseli National Park in Kenya.

            
The Amboseli Elephants is the long-awaited summation of what’s been learned from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP)—the longest continuously running elephant research project in the world. Cynthia J. Moss and Harvey Croze, the founders of the AERP, and Phyllis C. Lee, who has been closely involved with the project since 1982, compile more than three decades of uninterrupted study of over 2,500 individual elephants, from newborn calves to adult bulls to old matriarchs in their 60s. Chapters explore such topics as elephant ecosystems, genetics, communication, social behavior, and reproduction, as well as exciting new developments from the study of elephant minds and cognition. The book closes with a view to the future, making important arguments for the ethical treatment of elephants and suggestions to aid in their conservation.

            
The most comprehensive account of elephants in their natural environment to date, The Amboseli Elephants will be an invaluable resource for scientists, conservationists, and anyone interested in the lives and loves of these extraordinary creatures.        

[more]

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 1 (July 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 2 (August 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 3 (September 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 4 (October 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 5 (November 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022
This is volume 200 issue 5 of The American Naturalist. Since its inception in 1867, The American Naturalist has maintained its position as one of the world’s premier peer-reviewed publications in ecology, evolution, and behavior research. Its goals are to publish articles that are of broad interest to the readership, pose new and significant problems, introduce novel subjects, develop conceptual unification, and change the way people think. The American Naturalist emphasizes sophisticated methodologies and innovative theoretical syntheses — all in an effort to advance the knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles.
[more]

The American Naturalist, volume 200 number 6 (December 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022
This is volume 200 issue 6 of The American Naturalist. Since its inception in 1867, The American Naturalist has maintained its position as one of the world’s premier peer-reviewed publications in ecology, evolution, and behavior research. Its goals are to publish articles that are of broad interest to the readership, pose new and significant problems, introduce novel subjects, develop conceptual unification, and change the way people think. The American Naturalist emphasizes sophisticated methodologies and innovative theoretical syntheses — all in an effort to advance the knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles.
[more]

The American Naturalist, volume 201 number 1 (January 2023)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2023
This is volume 201 issue 1 of The American Naturalist. Since its inception in 1867, The American Naturalist has maintained its position as one of the world’s premier peer-reviewed publications in ecology, evolution, and behavior research. Its goals are to publish articles that are of broad interest to the readership, pose new and significant problems, introduce novel subjects, develop conceptual unification, and change the way people think. The American Naturalist emphasizes sophisticated methodologies and innovative theoretical syntheses — all in an effort to advance the knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles.
[more]

America's Founding Fruit
The Cranberry in a New Environment
Susan Playfair
University Press of New England, 2014
The cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon, is one of only three cultivated fruits native to North America. The story of this perennial vine began as the glaciers retreated about fifteen thousand years ago. Centuries later, it kept Native Americans and Pilgrims alive through the winter months, played a role in a diplomatic gesture to King Charles in 1677, protected sailors on board whaling ships from scurvy, fed General Grant’s men in 1864, and provided over a million pounds of sustenance per year to our World War II doughboys. Today, it is a powerful tool in the fight against various forms of cancer. This is America’s superfruit. This book poses the question of how the cranberry, and by inference other fruits, will fare in a warming climate. In her attempt to evaluate the effects of climate change, Susan Playfair interviewed growers from Massachusetts west to Oregon and from New Jersey north to Wisconsin, the cranberry’s temperature tolerance range. She also spoke with scientists studying the health benefits of cranberries, plant geneticists mapping the cranberry genome, a plant biologist who provided her with the first regression analysis of cranberry flowering times, and a migrant beekeeper trying to figure out why the bees are dying. Taking a broader view than the other books on cranberries, America’s Founding Fruit presents a brief history of cranberry cultivation and its role in our national history, leads the reader through the entire cultivation process from planting through distribution, and assesses the possible effects of climate change on the cranberry and other plants and animals. Could the American cranberry cease growing in the United States? If so, what would be lost?
[more]

Animal Body Size
Linking Pattern and Process across Space, Time, and Taxonomic Group
Edited by Felisa A. Smith and S. Kathleen Lyons
University of Chicago Press, 2013
Galileo wrote that “nature cannot produce a horse as large as twenty ordinary horses or a giant ten times taller than an ordinary man unless by miracle or by greatly altering the proportions of his limbs and especially of his bones”—a statement that wonderfully captures a long-standing scientific fascination with body size. Why are organisms the size that they are? And what determines their optimum size?          
           
This volume explores animal body size from a macroecological perspective, examining species, populations, and other large groups of animals in order to uncover the patterns and causal mechanisms of body size throughout time and across the globe. The chapters represent diverse scientific perspectives and are divided into two sections. The first includes chapters on insects, snails, birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals and discusses the body size patterns of these various organisms. The second examines some of the factors behind, and consequences of, body size patterns and includes chapters on community assembly, body mass distribution, life history, and the influence of flight on body size.
[more]

Animal Ecology
Charles S. Elton
University of Chicago Press, 2001
Charles Elton was one of the founders of ecology, and his Animal Ecology was one of the seminal works that defined the field. In this book Elton introduced and drew together many principles still central to ecology today, including succession, niche, food webs, and the links between communities and ecosystems, each of which he illustrated with well-chosen examples. Many of Elton's ideas have proven remarkably prescient—for instance, his emphasis on the role climatic changes play in population fluctuations anticipated recent research in this area stimulated by concerns about global warming.

For Chicago's reprint of this classic work, ecologists Mathew A. Leibold and J. Timothy Wootton have provided new introductions to each chapter, placing Elton's ideas in historical and scientific context. They trace modern developments in each of the key themes Elton introduced, and provide references to the most current literature. The result will be an important work for ecologists interested in the roots of their discipline, for educated readers looking for a good overview of the field, and for historians of science.
[more]

Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues
Reflections on Redecorating Nature
Marc Bekoff, foreword by Jane Goodall
Temple University Press, 2005
What is it really like to be a dog? Do animals experience emotions like pleasure, joy, and grief? Marc Bekoff's work draws world-wide attention for its originality and its probing into what animals think about and know as well as what they feel, what physical and mental skills they use to live successfully within their social community. Bekoff's work, whether addressed to scientists or the general public, demonstrates that investigations into animal thought, emotions, self-awareness, behavioral ecology, and conservation biology can be compassionate as well as scientifically rigorous.In Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues, Bekoff brings together essays on his own ground-breaking research and on what scientists know about the remarkable range and flexibility of animal behavior. His fascinating and often amusing observations of dogs, wolves, coyotes, prairie dogs, elephants, and other animals playing, leaving and detecting scent-marks ("yellow snow"), solving problems, and forming friendships challenge the idea that science and the ethical treatment of animals are incompatible.
[more]

Animals and the Maya in Southeast Mexico
E. N. Anderson and Felix Medina Tzuc
University of Arizona Press, 2005
In Mexico’s southeastern frontier state of Quintana Roo, game animals and other creatures that depend on old-growth forest are disappearing in the face of habitat destruction and overhunting. Traditionally, the Yucatec Maya have regarded animals as fellow members of a wider society, and in their religion animals enjoy the status of spiritual beings. But in recent years, the breakdown of cultural restraints on hunting has spiraled so far out of control that almost everything edible within easy reach of a road has become fair game.

This book combines the insights of an anthropologist with the hands-on experience of a Maya campesino with the aim of improving the management of Quintana Roo’s wild lands and animal resources. E. N. Anderson and Felix Medina Tzuc pool their knowledge to document Yucatec Maya understanding and use of animals and to address practical matters related to wider conservation issues.
 
Although the Yucatec Maya’s ethnobotany has been well documented, until now little has been recorded about their animal lore. Anderson and Medina Tzuc have compiled a wealth of information about traditional knowledge of animals in this corner of the Maya world. They have recorded most of the terms widely used for several hundred categories of animals in west central Quintana Roo, mapped them onto biological categories, and recorded basic information about wildlife management and uses.

The book reflects a wealth of knowledge gathered from individuals regarded as experts on particular aspects of animal management, whether hunting, herding, or beekeeping. It also offers case studies of conservation successes and failures in various communities, pointing to the need for cooperation by the Mexican government and Maya people to save wildlife. Appendixes provide an extensive animal classification and a complete list of all birds identified in the area.

Even though sustainable forestry has finally come to the Yucatán, sustainable game use is practiced by only a few communities. Animals and the Maya in Southeast Mexico is a complete ethnozoology for the region, offered in the hope that it will encourage the recognition of Quintana Roo’s forests and wildlife as no less deserving of protection than ancient Maya cities.
[more]

Animate Planet
Making Visceral Sense of Living in a High-Tech Ecologically Damaged World
Kath Weston
Duke University Press, 2017
In Animate Planet Kath Weston shows how new intimacies between humans, animals, and their surroundings are emerging as people attempt to understand how the high-tech ecologically damaged world they have made is remaking them, one synthetic chemical, radioactive isotope, and megastorm at a time. Visceral sensations, she finds, are vital to this process, which yields a new animism in which humans and "the environment" become thoroughly entangled. In case studies on food, water, energy, and climate from the United States, India, and Japan, Weston approaches the new animism as both a symptom of our times and an analytic with the potential to open paths to new and forgotten ways of living.
[more]

The Anthrobscene
Jussi Parikka
University of Minnesota Press, 2014
Smartphones, laptops, tablets, and e-readers all at one time held the promise of a more environmentally healthy world not dependent on paper and deforestation. The result of our ubiquitous digital lives is, as we see in The Anthrobscene, actually quite the opposite: not ecological health but an environmental wasteland, where media never die. Jussi Parikka critiques corporate and human desires as a geophysical force, analyzing the material side of the earth as essential for the existence of media and introducing the notion of an alternative deep time in which media live on in the layer of toxic waste we will leave behind as our geological legacy. 

Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.
[more]

Anthropologies of Guayana
Cultural Spaces in Northeastern Amazonia
Edited by Neil L. Whitehead and Stephanie Alemán
University of Arizona Press, 2009
Unlike better-known regions of the Amazon, Guayana—a broad cultural region that includes the countries of Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana, as well as parts of eastern Venezuela and northern Brazil—has rarely been integrated into the broader narratives of South American anthropology and history. Nevertheless, Guayana provides a unique historical context for the persistence and survival of native peoples distinct from the histories reflected by the intense colonial competition in the region over the past 500 years.

This is an important collection that brings together the work of scholars from North America, South America, and Europe to reveal the anthropological significance of Guayana, the ancient realm of El Dorado and still the scene of gold and diamond mining. Beginning with the earliest civilizations of the region, the chapters focus on the historical ecology of the rain forest and the archaeological record up to the sixteenth century, as well as ethnography, ethnology, and perceptions of space. The book features extensive discussions of the history of a range of indigenous groups, such as the Waiwai, Trio, Wajãpi, and Palikur. Contributions analyze the emergence of a postcolonial national society, the contrasts between the coastlands and upland regions, and the significance of race and violence in contemporary politics.

A noteworthy study of the prehistory and history of the region, the book also provides a useful survey of the current issues facing northeastern Amazonia. The chapters extend the anthropological agenda beyond the conventional focus on the “indigenous” even as contributors describe how Guayanese languages, mythologies, and social structures have remained resilient in the face of intense outside pressures.
[more]

Applied Panarchy
Applications and Diffusion across Disciplines
Edited by Lance H. Gunderson, Craig R. Allen, and Ahjond Garmestani
Island Press, 2022
After a decades-long economic slump, the city of Flint, Michigan, struggled to address chronic issues of toxic water supply, malnutrition, and food security gaps among its residents. A community-engaged research project proposed a resilience assessment that would use panarchy theory to move the city toward a more sustainable food system. Flint is one of many examples that demonstrates how panarchy theory is being applied to understand and influence change in complex human-natural systems. Applied Panarchy, the much-anticipated successor to Lance Gunderson and C.S. Holling’s seminal 2002 volume Panarchy, documents the extraordinary advances in interdisciplinary panarchy scholarship and applications over the past two decades. Panarchy theory has been applied to a broad range of fields, from economics to law to urban planning, changing the practice of environmental stewardship for the better in measurable, tangible ways.

Panarchy describes the way systems—whether forests, electrical grids, agriculture, coastal surges, public health, or human economies and governance—are part of even larger systems that interact in unpredictable ways. Although humans desire resiliency and stability in our lives to help us understand the world and survive, nothing in nature is permanently stable. How can society anticipate and adjust to the changes we see around us? Where Panarchy proposed a framework to understand how these transformational cycles work and how we might influence them, Applied Panarchy takes the scholarship to the next level, demonstrating how these concepts have been modified and refined. The book shows how panarchy theory intersects with other disciplines, and how it directly influences natural resources management and environmental stewardship.

Intended as a text for graduate courses in environmental sciences and related fields, Applied Panarchy picks up where Panarchy left off, inspiring new generations of scholars, researchers, and professionals to put its ideas to work in practical ways.
 
[more]

Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 24, no. 1
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021
In This Issue

Ecology, fisheries and aquaculture in African aquatic ecosystems: GLOW 9, Part I

Editorial
Preface

What affects fisheries in African lakes: Climate change or fishing effort? A case study from Lake Kariba
B. E. Marshall (New Zealand)

Using the Multi-metric Index of Biotic Integrity methodological approach to determine the major river catchment that most pollutes a lake
C. M. Aura, C. S. Nyamweya, J. M. Njiru, R. Omondi, J. Manyala, S. Musa, H. Owiti, F. Guya, C. Ongore, Z. Ogari, J. Mwamburi (Kenya)

Sustainable crab fishery for blue economy in Kenya
E. N. Fondo, B. Ogutu (Kenya)

Growth and survival of Mud Crab, Scylla serrata, reared in bottom and floating cages within Mida creek mangroves, coastal Kenya
J. M. Mwaluma, B. Kaunda-Arara (Kenya)

The status of seagrass beds in the coastal county of Lamu, Kenya
J. Uku, L. Daudi, V. Alati, A. Nzioka, C. Muthama (Kenya) 35

An overview of fish disease and parasite occurrence in the cage culture of Oreochromis niloticus: A case study in Lake Victoria, Kenya
V. M. Mwainge, C. Ogwai, C. M. Aura, A. Mutie, V. Ombwa, H. Nyaboke, K. N. Oyier, J. Nyaundi (Kenya)

The state of cage culture in Lake Victoria: A focus on sustainability, rural economic empowerment, and food security
P. Orina, E. Ogello, E. Kembenya, C. Muthoni, S. Musa, V. Ombwa, V. Mwainge, J. Abwao, R. Ondiba, J. Kengere, S. Karoza (Kenya)

Socioeconomic dynamics and characterization of land-based aquaculture in Western Kenya
J. Abwao, S. Musa, R. Ondiba, Z. Ogari (Kenya)

The role of women in freshwater aquaculture development in Kenya
F. J. Awuor (Kenya)

Fish feeds and feed management practices in the Kenyan aquaculture sector: Challenges and opportunities
J. Munguti, H. Odame, J. Kirimi, K. Obiero, E. Ogello, D. Liti (Kenya)

The effects of situation analysis practices on implementation of poverty alleviation mariculture projects in the coast of Kenya
J. O. Odhiambo, J. Wakibia, M. M. Sakwa, F. Munyi, H. Owiti, E. Waiyaki (Kenya)

Kenya marine fisheries: The next frontier for economic growth?
J. Njiru, J. O. Omukoto, E. N. Kimani, C. M. Aura, M. Van der Knaap (Kenya)

GLOW 9 Synthesis: Blue Economy, a long way to go
M. Van der Knaap, M. Munawar, J. Njiru (Ethiopia)

Joe Leach: In Memoriam
Articles by M. Munawar, E. Mills, G. D. Haffner, W. G. Sprules, J. Hartig, T. B. Johnson, M. Fitzpatrick, D. Stanley
 
[more]

Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 24, no. 2
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021
In This Issue

State of Aquatic Invasive Species in India: Past, present and future

Editorial
Prelude
Foreword
Preface

Aquatic invasive species status in India
State of invasive aquatic species in tropical India: An overview
A. K. Singh (India)

Changing food webs of Indian aquatic ecosystems under the threats of invasive species: An overview
P. Panikkar, M. Feroz Khan, U.K. Sarkar, and B.K. Das (India)

Regional status of aquatic invasive species in India
Spatial assemblage and interference competition of introduced Brown Trout (Salmo trutta fario) in a Himalayan river network: Implications for native fish conservation
A. Sharma, V. K. Dubey, J. A. Johnson, Y. K. Rawal, and K. Sivakumar (India)

MaxEnt distribution modeling for predicting Oreochromis niloticus invasion into the Ganga river system, India and conservation concern of native fish biodiversity
A. K. Singh, S. C. Srivastava, and P. Verma (India)

Establishment and impact of exotic Cyprinus carpio (Common Carp) on native fish diversity in Buxar stretch of River Ganga, India
A. Ray, C. Johnson, R. K. Manna, R. Baitha, S. D. Gupta, N. K. Tiwari, H. S. Swain, and B. K. Das (India)

Distribution of alien invasive species in aquatic ecosystems of the southern Western Ghats, India
S. Raj, P. Prakash, R. Reghunath, J. C. Tharian, R. Raghavan, and A. B. Kumar (India)

Invasion and potential risks of introduced exotic aquatic species in Indian islands
C. Raghunathan, T. Mondal, and K. Chandra (India)

Management of aquatic invasive species in India
Management of alien aquatic invasive species: Strategic guidelines and policy in India
A. K. Singh (India)

Stakeholder perceptions and strategies for management of non-native freshwater fishes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India
R. Kiruba-Sankar, J. Praveenraj, K. Saravanan, K L. Kumar, H. Haridas, U. Biswas (India)

Managements strategies to regulate the introduction of exotic ornamental fish, the silent invaders of freshwater ecosystems in India
T. T. A. Kumar and K. K. Lal (India)

Contributed Articles
Bioaccumulation of trace elements in migratory waterbirds at two wetlands of Indus river
M. A. Ashraf and Z. Ali (Pakistan)

Seasonal variation of heavy metal accumulation in environment and fishes from the Cirebon coast, Indonesia
H. I. Januar, Dwiyitno, and I. Hidayah (Indonesia)

Evaluation of the effect of carbamazepine on the concentration of vitellogenin in Pseudoplatystoma magdaleniatum
S. M. Cacua Ortiz, N. J. Aguirre, and G. A. Peñuela (Colombia)

Classification of Typha-dominated wetlands using airborne hyperspectral imagery along Lake Ontario, USA
G. M. Suir, D. A. Wilcox, and M. Reif (USA)
[more]

Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 24, no. 3
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021
CONTENTS
Climate change and changing Indian fisheries in the 21st century: Vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation

Foreword
Preface

Impact of climate change on Indian fisheries
Research advances in climate and environmental change impacts on inland fisheries of India: status, vulnerability, and mitigation strategies
U. K. Sarkar and B. K. Das (India)

Invasion meltdown and burgeoning threats of invasive fish species in inland waters of India in the era of climate change
A. K. Singh and S. C. Srivastava (India)

Impacts of climate change and adaptations in shrimp aquaculture: A study in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India
M.Muralidhar, M. Kumaran, M. Jayanthi, J. Syama Dayal, J. Ashok Kumar,R.Saraswathy, and A. Nagavel (India)

Effect of extreme climatic events on fish seed production in Lower Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, India: Constraint analysis and adaptive strategies
B. K. Bhattacharjya, A. K. Yadav, D. Debnath, B. J. Saud, V. K. Verma, S. Yengkokpam, U. K. Sarkar, and B. K. Das (India)

Impact of climate change on Indian wetlands and fisheries
Floodplain wetlands of eastern India in a changing climate: Trophic characterization, ecological status, and implications for fisheries
M.Puthiyottil, U. K. Sarkar, L. Lianthuamluaia, G. Karnatak, M. A. Hassan, S. Kumari,B.D. Ghosh, and B. K. Das (India)

Ecosystem vulnerability of floodplain wetlands of the Lower Brahmaputra Valley to climatic and anthropogenic factors
D. Debnath, B. K. Bhattacharjya, S. Yengkokpam, U. K. Sarkar, P. Paul, B. K. Das (India)

Dynamics of river flows towards sustaining floodplain wetland fisheries under climate change: A case study
A. K. Sahoo, B. K. Das, L. Lianthuamluaia, R. K. Raman, D. K. Meena, C. M. Roshith, A. R. Chowdhury, S. R. Choudhury, and D. Sadhukhan (India)

Enhancing adaptive capacity of wetland fishers through pen culture in the face of changing climate: A study from a tropical wetland, India
G. Karnatak, U. K. Sarkar, M. Puthiyottil, L. Lianthuamluaia, B. D. Ghosh, S. Bakshi, A. K. Das, and B. K. Das (India)

Impact of climate change-induced challenges on fisheries in the North Eastern Region of India and the way ahead
B. C. Borah (India)

Contributed Articles
Response of extreme significant wave height to climate change in the South China Sea and northern Indian Ocean
Y. Luo, H. Shi and W. Wang (China)

Pattern of spatio-temporal fish diversity in association with habitat gradients in a tropical reservoir, India
R. V. Leela, S. M. Salim, J. Parakkandi, P. Panikkar, K. Mani, V. M. Eregowda, U. K. Sarkar, and B. K. Das (India)
[more]

Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 24, no. 4
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2021
Contents
Ecosystem health and fisheries of Indian inland waters: Ecology and socio-economics - Part 1 (AEHMS 12)


Foreword
Prelude
Preface

Ecology of inland waters
Exploring microbiome from sediments of River Ganga using a metagenomic approach
B. K. Behera, P. Sahu, A. K. Rout, P. K. Parida, D. J. Sarkar, N. K. Kaushik, A. R. Rao, A.Rai, B. K. Das, T. Mohapatra (India)

Assessment of heavy metal contaminations in water and sediment of River Godavari, India
S.Samanta, V. Kumar, S. K. Nag, K. Saha, A.M. Sajina, S. Bhowmick, S. K. Paul, andB. K. Das (India)

Influence of riverine connectivity on phytoplankton abundance and diversity of associated wetlands of River Ganga: A comparative study of an open and a closed wetland
S.Bayen, T. R. Mohanty, T. N. Chanu, C. Johnson, N. K. Tiwari, R. K. Manna,H. S. Swain, B. K. Das (India)

Assessing the influence of environmental factors on fish assemblage and spatial diversity in an unexplored subtropical Jargo reservoir of the Ganga River basin
A.Alam, J. Kumar, U. K. Sarkar, D. N. Jha, S. C. S. Das, S. K. Srivastava, V. Kumar,B. K. Das (India)

Impact of fish stock enhancement on fish yield of floodplain wetlands in different agro-climatic zones of Assam, India
A. K. Yadav, K. K. Das, S. Borah, P. Das, B. K. Bhattacharjya, B. K. Das (India)

Status of biodiversity and limno-chemistry of Deepor Beel, a Ramsar site of international importance: Conservation needs and the way forward
B. K. Bhattacharjya, B. J. Saud, S. Borah, P. K. Saikia, and B. K. Das (India)

Socio-economics
Resilience of inland fishers against nature’s fury: A study on effect of extremely severe cyclone Fani on socio-economy and livelihood of fishers’ household in Odisha, India
A. Pandit, A. Saha, L. Chakraborty, H. S. Swain, S. K. Sharma, B. P. Mohanty, and B. K. Das (India)

An overview of enclosure culture in inland open waters: Responding to socio-economic, ecological and climate change issues in inland fisheries
D. Debnath, B.K. Bhattacharjya, S. Yengkokpam, U.K. Sarkar, M.A. Hassan, A.K. Das, and B.K. Das (India)

Contributed Articles
The effects of hydrology on macroinvertebrate traits in river channel and wetland habitats
I. Growns, I. W. Tsoi, M. Southwell, S. Mika, S. Lewis, B. Vincent (Australia)

Evaluating the use of hyperspectral imagery to calculate raster-based wetland vegetation condition indicator
G. M. Suir and D. A. Wilcox (USA)

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[more]

Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 25, no. 1
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2022
CONTENTS

Ecosystem services of fish and fisheries: Social, cultural, and economic perspective Part 1 - North and South America

Forward
Preface

North America
From fragments to connections to restoration: A case history of emergent sociocultural services in the Clark Fork River and Lake Pend Oreille fishery
C. E. Corsi, M. P. Corsi, K. E. Wallen, K. A. Bouwens, P. C. Kusnierz, K. E. Shaw, N. E. Hall, J. S. Maroney, J. S. Williams (USA)

Cultural and educational releases of salmon in areas blocked by major hydroelectric projects on the Columbia River
C. Baldwin, C. Giorgi, T. Biladeau (USA)

Reconnecting people to the Detroit River – A transboundary effort
J. H. Hartig, T. Scott, G. Gell, and K. Berk (Canada/USA)

Freshwater and fisheries: The need for comparative valuation
D. Bartley (USA)

More than ponds amid skyscrapers: Urban fisheries as multiscalar human-natural systems
A. K. Carlson, W. J. Boonstra, S. Joosse, D. I. Rubenstein, S. A. Levin (USA)

South America
Quantifying fish catches and fish consumption in the Amazon Basin
A. Sirén and J. Valbo-Jørgensen (Ecuador)

Ecosystem services in the floodplains: socio-cultural services associated with ecosystem unpredictability in the Pantanal wetland, Brazil
R. M. Chiaravalloti, F. Bolzan, F. de Oliveira Roque, S. Biswas (USA)

Contributed papers
Half a century of dedicated research for the sake of the lakes: A record of the celebration for Mohiuddin Munawar by Fisheries and Oceans Canada
M. Van der Knaap (Kenya)

Influence of coastal engineering on the intertidal macrobenthic community in the Dongtou Islands, China
Y. Tang, Y. Liao, L. Shou, C. Li (China)

Autonomous underwater glider observations in southern Lake Ontario and Niagara River plume
P. McKinney, T. Hollenhorst, J. Hoffman (USA)
 
[more]

Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 25, no. 2
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press Journals, 2022
CONTENTS
Ecosystem health and fisheries of Indian inland waters: Fisheries and biodiversity - Part 2 (AEHMS 12)

Application of the Laurentian Great Lakes ‘Ecosystem Approach’ towards remediation and restoration of the mighty River Ganges, India
M. Munawar, M. Fitzpatrick, I.F. Munawar (Canada)

Fisheries and Biodiversity
Genetic diversity study of three Indian major carps from four riverine ecosystems
B.K. Behera, V. S. Baisvar, A.K. Rout, P. Paria, P. K. Parida, D.K. Meena, P. Das, B. Sahu, B.K. Das, J. Jena (India)

Development and validation of fish-based index of biotic integrity for assessing ecological health of Indian rivers Mahanadi and Kathajodi-Devi
A.M. Sajina, D. Sudheesan, S. Samanta, S. K. Paul, S. Bhowmick, S. K. Nag, V. Kumar (India)

Fishery and population dynamics of Otolithoides pama (Hamilton, 1822) from Hooghly-Matlah Estuary of West Bengal, India
D. Bhakta, S.K. Das, B.K. Das, T.S. Nagesh, and B.K. Behera (India)

On the population characteristics of anadromous Tenualosa ilisha (Hamilton, 1822) occurring from River Brahmaputra, India
S. Borah, G. Vaisakh, A.K. Jaiswar, B.K. Bhattacharjya, A.K. Sahoo, G. Deshmukhe, B.K. Behera, D.K. Meena, P. Das, and B.K. Das (India)

Fish diversity and assemblage structure along the river-estuary continuum in the River Cauvery, India
C. M. Roshith, R. K. Manna, S. Samanta, V. R. Suresh, Lohith Kumar, S. Sibinamol, S. K. Sharma, A. Roy Choudhury, M. E. Vijayakumar, and B. K. Das (India)

Fish diversity, community structure, and environmental variables of River Tamas, a tributary of River Ganga, India
S. C. S. Das, D.N. Jha, V. Kumar, A. Alam, K. Srivastava, A.K. Sahoo, and B.K. Das (India)

E-Flow estimation through a hydrology-based method in the Tamas River at Bakiya Barrage, Madhya Pradesh, India
D.N. Jha, S.C.S. Das, K. Srivastava, V. Kumar, A.K. Sahoo, R. S. Srivastava, B.K. Das (India)

Ecosystem Health and Fisheries of Indian Inland Waters (AEHMS 12), Pantnagar, Utterakhand, India, February 17-19, 2020: Declaration and final recommendations of the conference

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Contributed Papers
Model development in support of the Lake Ontario Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative
Y. Hui, D. Schlea, J. Atkinson, Z. Zhu, and T. Redder (USA)
[more]

Arid Lands in Perspective
Edited by William G. McGinnies and Bram J. Goldman
University of Arizona Press, 1969
These articles represent the combined efforts of many people with varied orientations to summarize aspects of current research and knowledge relevant for the multitudes attempting to inhabit Earth’s warm arid areas, known for their imbalance of natural resources.
 
Contributors:

Michel Batisse
William A. Dick-Peddie
Carl N. Hodges
Richard F. Logan
Roy E. Cameron
Clifford S. Christian
Klaus W. Flach
Ronald L. Heathcote
Douglas H. K. Lee
Lawrence K. Lustig
William G. McGinnies
Peveril Meigs
James T. Neal
Daniel A. Okun
Harland I. Padfield
Patricia Paylore
Rayden A. Perry
Roald A. Peterson
Robert L. Raikes
Courtland L. Smith
Guy D. Smith
Andrew Warren
John C. York
[more]

Armadillos to Ziziphus
A Naturalist in the Texas Hill Country
David M. Hillis, foreword by Harry W. Greene
University of Texas Press, 2023

A collection of essays on the ecology, biodiversity, and restoration of the Texas Hill Country.

For most of five decades, evolutionary biologist David Hillis has studied the biodiversity of the Texas Hill Country. Since the 1990s, he has worked to restore the natural beauty and diversity of his Mason County ranch, the Double Helix. In his excursions around his ranch and across the Edwards Plateau, Hillis came to realize how little most people know about the plants and animals around them or their importance to our everyday lives. He began thinking about how natural history is connected to our enjoyment of life, especially in a place as beautiful and beloved as the Hill Country, which, not coincidentally, happens to be one of the most biodiverse parts of Texas.

Featuring short nontechnical essays accompanied by vivid color photos, Armadillos to Ziziphus is a charming and casual introduction to the environment of the region. Whether walking the pasture with his Longhorn cattle, explaining the ecological significance of microscopic organisms in springtime mud puddles, or marveling at the local Ziziphus (aka Lotebush, a spiny shrub), Hillis guides first-time visitors and long-term residents alike in an appreciation for the Hill Country’s natural beauty and diversity.

[more]

Armies and Ecosystems in Premodern Europe
The Meuse Region, 1250-1850
Sander Govaerts
Arc Humanities Press, 2021
Using the ecosystem concept as his starting point, the author examines the complex relationship between premodern armed forces and their environment at three levels: landscapes, living beings, and diseases. The study focuses on Europe’s Meuse Region, well-known among historians of war as a battleground between France and Germany. By analyzing soldiers’ long-term interactions with nature, this book engages with current debates about the ecological impact of the military, and provides new impetus for contemporary armed forces to make greater effort to reduce their environmental footprint.
[more]

Army Ants
Nature’s Ultimate Social Hunters
Daniel J. C. Kronauer
Harvard University Press, 2020

A richly illustrated, captivating study of army ants, nature’s preeminent social hunters.

A swarm raid is one of nature’s great spectacles. In tropical rainforests around the world, army ants march in groups by the thousands to overwhelm large solitary invertebrates, along with nests of termites, wasps, and other ants. They kill and dismember their prey and carry it back to their nest, where their hungry brood devours it. They are the ultimate social hunters, demonstrating the most fascinating collective behavior.

In Army Ants we see how these insects play a crucial role in promoting and sustaining the biodiversity of tropical ecosystems. The ants help keep prey communities in check while also providing nutrition for other animals. Many species depend on army ants for survival, including a multitude of social parasites, swarm-following birds, and flies. And while their hunting behavior, and the rules that govern it, are clearly impressive, army ants display collective behavior in other ways that are no less dazzling. They build living nests, called bivouacs, using their bodies to protect the queen and larvae. The ants can even construct bridges over open space or obstacles by linking to one another using their feet. These incredible feats happen without central coordination. They are the result of local interactions—self-organization that benefits the society at large.

Through observations, stories, and stunning images, Daniel Kronauer brings these fascinating creatures to life. Army ants may be small, but their collective intelligence and impact on their environment are anything but.

[more]

The Art of Being a Parasite
Claude Combes
University of Chicago Press, 2005
Parasites are a masterful work of evolutionary art. The tiny mite Histiostoma laboratorium, a parasite of Drosophila, launches itself, in an incredible display of evolutionary engineering, like a surface-to-air missile at a fruit fly far above its head. Gravid mussels such as Lampsilis ventricosa undulate excitedly as they release their parasitic larval offspring, conning greedy predators in search of a tasty meal into hosting the parasite.

The Art of Being a Parasite is an extensive collection of these and other wonderful and weird stories that illuminate the ecology and evolution of interactions between species. Claude Combes illustrates what it means to be a parasite by considering every stage of its interactions, from invading to reproducing and leaving the host. An accessible and engaging follow-up to Combes's Parasitism, this book will be of interest to both scholars and nonspecialists in the fields of biodiversity, natural history, ecology, public health, and evolution.
[more]

Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology
Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice
Edited by Vicky M. Temperton, Richard J. Hobbs, Tim Nuttle, and Stefan Halle
Island Press, 2004

Understanding how ecosystems are assembled -- how the species that make up a particular biological community arrive in an area, survive, and interact with other species -- is key to successfully restoring degraded ecosystems. Yet little attention has been paid to the idea of assembly rules in ecological restoration,
in both the scientific literature and in on-the-ground restoration efforts.

Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology, edited by Vicky M. Temperton, Richard J. Hobbs, Tim Nuttle, and Stefan Halle, addresses that shortcoming, offering an introduction, overview, and synthesis of the potential role of assembly rules theory in restoration ecology. It brings together information and ideas relating to ecosystem assembly in a restoration context, and includes material from a wide geographic range and a variety of perspectives.

Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology contributes new knowledge and ideas to the subjects of assembly rules and restoration ecology and represents an important summary of the current status of an emerging field. It combines theoretical and practical aspects of restoration, making it a vital compendium of information and ideas for restoration ecologists, professionals, and practitioners.


[more]

Asserting Native Resilience
Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Face the Climate Crisis
Edited by Zoltán Grossman and Alan Parker
Oregon State University Press, 2012
Indigenous nations are on the front line of the climate crisis. With cultures and economies among the most vulnerable to climate-related catastrophes, Native peoples are developing twenty-first century responses to climate change that serve as a model for Natives and non-Native communities alike.

Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Indigenous peoples around the Pacific Rim have already been deeply affected by droughts, flooding, reduced glaciers and snowmelts, seasonal shifts in winds and storms, and the northward movement of species on the land and in the ocean. Using tools of resilience, Native peoples are creating defenses to strengthen their communities, mitigate losses, and adapt where possible.

Asserting Native Resilience presents a rich variety of perspectives on Indigenous responses to the climate crisis, reflecting the voices of more than twenty contributors, including tribal leaders, scientists, scholars, and activists from the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, Alaska, and Aotearoa / New Zealand, and beyond. Also included is a resource directory of Indigenous governments, NGOs, and communities and a community organizing booklet for use by Northwest tribes.


[more]

At the Desert's Green Edge
An Ethnobotany of the Gila River Pima
Amadeo M. Rea; With a Foreword by Gary Paul Nabhan; Sumi-e Illustrations by Takashi Ijichi; Linguistic Consultant Culver Cassa
University of Arizona Press, 1997
Winner of the Society for Economic Botany’s Klinger Book Award

The Akimel O'odham, or Pima Indians, of the northern Sonoran Desert continue to make their home along Arizona's Gila River despite the alarming degradation of their habitat that has occurred over the past century. The oldest living Pimas can recall a lush riparian ecosystem and still recite more than two hundred names for plants in their environment, but they are the last generation who grew up subsisting on cultivated native crops or wild-foraged plants. Ethnobiologist Amadeo M. Rea has written the first complete ethnobotany of the Gila River Pima and has done so from the perspective of the Pimas themselves.

At the Desert's Green Edge weaves the Pima view of the plants found in their environment with memories of their own history and culture, creating a monumental testament to their traditions and way of life. Rea first discusses the Piman people, environment, and language, then proceeds to share their botanical knowledge in entries for 240 plants that systematically cover information on economic botany, folk taxonomy, and linguistics. The entries are organized according to Pima life-form categories such as plants growing in water, eaten greens, and planted fruit trees. All are anecdotal, conveying the author's long personal involvement with the Pimas, whether teaching in their schools or learning from them in conversations and interviews.

At the Desert's Green Edge is an archive of otherwise unavailable plant lore that will become a benchmark for botanists and anthropologists. Enhanced by more than one hundred brush paintings of plants, it is written to be equally useful to nonspecialists so that the Pimas themselves can turn to it as a resource regarding their former lifeways. More than an encyclopedia of facts, it is the Pimas' own story, a witness to a changing way of life in the Sonoran Desert.
[more]

Atlas of Coastal Ecosystems in the Western Gulf of California
Tracking Limestone Deposits on the Margin of a Young Sea
Edited by Markes E. Johnson and Jorge Ledesma-Vásquez
University of Arizona Press, 2009
The Gulf of California is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but it is also important to earth and marine scientists who work far beyond the area. In text and an accompanying CD-ROM with stunning satellite images, this atlas captures the dynamics of natural cycles in the fertility of the Gulf of California that have been in near-continuous operation for more than five million years. The book is designed to answer key questions that link the health of coastal ecosystems with the region’s evolutionary history: What was the richness of “fossil” ecosystems in the Gulf of California? How has it changed over time? Which ecosystems are most amenable to conservation?

With an emphasis on the intricate workings of the Gulf, a team of scientists led by Markes E. Johnson and Jorge Ledesma-Vázquez explores how marine invertebrates such as corals and bivalves, as well as certain algae, contribute to the operation of a vast “organic engine” that acts as a significant carbon trap. The Atlas reveals that the role of these organisms in the ecology of the Gulf was greatly underestimated in the past. The organisms that live in these environments (or provide the sediments for beaches and dunes) are mass producers of calcium carbonate. Until now, no book has considered the centrality of calcium carbonate production as it functions today across multiple ecosystems and how it has evolved over time.

An important work of scholarship that also evokes the region’s natural splendor, the Atlas will be of interest to a wide range of scientists, including geologists, paleontologists, marine biologists, ecologists, and conservation biologists.
[more]

Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes
Amy Eisenberg
University of Alabama Press, 2013
Explores the relationship between indigenous people, the management of natural resources, and the development process in a modernizing region of Chile
 
Aymara Indians are a geographically isolated, indigenous people living in the Andes Mountains near Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of the most arid regions of the world. As rapid economic growth in the area has begun to divert scarce water to hydroelectric and agricultural projects, the Aymara struggle to maintain their sustainable and traditional systems of water use, agriculture, and pastoralism.

In Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes, Amy Eisenberg provides a detailed exploration of the ethnoecological dimensions of the tension between the Aymara, whose economic, spiritual, and social life are inextricably tied to land and water, and three major challenges: the paving of Chile Highway 11, the diversion of the Altiplano waters of the Río Lauca for irrigation and power-generation, and Chilean national park policies regarding Aymara communities, their natural resources, and cultural properties within Parque Nacional Lauca, the International Biosphere Reserve.

Pursuing collaborative research, Eisenberg performed ethnographic interviews with Aymara people in more than sixteen Andean villages, some at altitudes of 4,600 meters. Drawing upon botany, agriculture, natural history, physical and cultural geography, history, archaeology, and social and environmental impact assessment, she presents deep, multifaceted insights from the Aymara’s point of view.

Illustrated with maps and dramatic photographs by John Amato, Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes provides an account of indigenous perspectives and concerns related to economic development that will be invaluable to scholars and policy-makers in the fields of natural and cultural resource preservation in and beyond Chile.
 
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