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- Herausgeber: Bentham Science Publishers
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
A Treatise on Ecological Science provides a fresh perspective on modern ecological thought by exploring topics often overlooked in traditional ecological texts. The book opens with a discussion of Network Ecology, unraveling the interconnectedness of ecosystems, and transitions to the intricate relationship between biodiversity and climate change. It further addresses Human Ecology, highlighting its central role in shaping ecological discourse, and explores the principles of Industrial Ecology, emphasizing sustainable practices in industrial systems. The final chapter critically examines the Sustainable Development Goals, offering a balanced view of their benefits and limitations.
Designed to bridge gaps between ecology, industry, and global sustainability, this book serves as an insightful resource for students, researchers, and policymakers interested in contemporary ecological science and its practical applications.
Key Features:
- Examines underexplored topics in ecological science.
- Connects biodiversity, climate change, and human ecology.
- Highlights the role of industrial ecology in sustainability.
- Provides a critical analysis of Sustainable Development Goals.
Readership:
Suitable for students, researchers, and sustainability professionals.
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Seitenzahl: 145
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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FOREWORD
When we started to plan our course “Dynamic Models in Biology”, and the textbook of the same name to go with it (Princeton University Press, 2006), my co-author and co-instructor John Guckenheimer observed that “the best books are often the most personal books”. That is: books aiming for even-handed, comprehensive coverage of a subject are useful as reference books -- I have a few such on my bookshelf, many with “encyclopedia” or “handbook” in their titles, and some of them really have been very useful. But books that very selectively highlight one person’s idea of what is important in a subject area, one person’s interpretation of current knowledge, and their projections about the future – those are the books that get read from cover to cover, which can divert a reader into a different line of inquiry, and even change the direction of an entire field.
Vikas Rai has written a very personal book about ecology. The viewpoint is modern. Classically an ecosystem was typically conceptualized as stocks and flows of various molecules (C, N, P, etc.). That view is not without value when our goal is to summarize global biogeochemistry. But we now know how crucial it is that those molecules are clustered into individual organisms, who attend to the world around them and make intelligent decisions, shaped by natural selection. The fundamental events in ecosystems are then births and deaths, that is: consuming, being consumed, and converting consumed resources into offspring. Accordingly, the book opens with the study of these interactions and the competition that results when there are multiple consumers for one food item. The subsequent chapters broaden from this fine scale to networks of interacting species, and then to the level of global biodiversity. Individual actions – in particular human individual actions – again take center stage in the next three chapters, exploring how human decisions now determine the state and fate of planet Earth. The last chapter concerns sustainable development goals; the agenda set by Comity of Nations; UNO.
So will this book teach you about all of ecological science? No, not even close. But it will tell you how one person views those topics after decades of thinking about them and contributing to them, and what he thinks is most important. And maybe it will help you choose how you want to make your own contributions.
PREFACE
A textbook on ecology that covers all aspects of ecological sciences has been missing in the literature. It will be befitting to bring out such a text that prepares for an introductory class of undergraduate students. For this, the knowledge of matrix theory and differential equations (both ordinary and partial) is the prerequisite. The present book lacks a chapter on ‘microbial ecology’. The author has no expertise in the subject. Details of microbes and their interactions with plants can be found in other texts. A concise book with essential details and lucid descriptions of the latest knowledge on key topics is bought out.
Ecological Imbalance is the principal cause of most of the problems on Earth. Ecosystem services are impeded in several known and unknown ways when such an imbalance occurs. In order to understand how this causative agent operates, key elements of ‘ecological complexity’ are required to be understood. The present book provides a framework to understand the ‘balance of nature’ with minimal use of mathematics in order to reach a broader readership.
Ecological systems are an example of ‘complex systems’. The content of the chapter presents ecosystems as the ‘network of networks’. The chapter on network ecology provides a brief description of how interaction types and the number of interactions among species determine its ‘existential capacity’ and ‘functional efficiency’. The key elements of an ecosystem are food webs; a network of interconnected food chains. The present text classifies food chains into two types: linear and nonlinear.
Climate change drives catastrophic changes in biodiversity. This is the reason why the book presents a brief chapter on biodiversity and its relationship with climate changein Chapter 2. The third chapter on human ecology provides a framework to integrate ecological sciences with neurosciences. Modern civilization cannot exist without industry. Industries cause pollution which deteriorates the ‘quality of life’ on Earth. The author emphasizes that it must be taught at the undergraduate level so that the basic philosophy of the subject is injected into the DNA of individuals of homo - sapiens. This is the fourth chapter.
The last chapter on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) provides a historical perspective on the topic of ‘sustainable development’. Under SDG 1 (No poverty), both the definitions of poverty; workable and broader, are provided. Ecological viewpoints of all SDGs are discussed. In sum, after reading all the chapters in the book, a student will have sufficient knowledge to analyze the phenomenal world around him/her.
Network Ecology
Vikas Rai1Abstract
Ecological systems (populations and communities) interact with each other. These entities can be viewed as networks and ecosystems as ‘networks of networks’. Ecological networks share common properties with other networks; e.g., Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). WSNs consist of receivers and transmitters of information at locations called nodes. These nodes transmit and receive information with each other in ‘packets’. In the context of ecology, these packets contain material and energy; e.g., the bird from the bird sanctuary (20 kms away from my residence) being caught by the cat for food. Elements of network theory which are essential for applications to ecological networks are introduced. Decisions of animal movements and observed patterns of movement can be better explored in this framework. Although these networks have complex architecture, their hierarchical nature admits well-defined patterns that illuminate mechanisms of functioning of ecosystems. Applications of network theory would advance the understanding of complex interactions between species; ‘tangled banks’ of nature.
Ecological networks are simulated. These simulation experiments illuminate observed patterns of movement. A network of social interactions and a network of movement patterns are explored to know how movement decisions are taken.
INTRODUCTION
Investigations in ecological theory and modeling have focused largely on simple food – webs; two or more food - chains linked with migration or with a few weak – trophic interactions. Natural ecological systems are more complex than one can imagine. Ecological systems consist of several weak (predation/harvesting) and a few strong trophic interactions (McKann, 1998; O’Gorman & Emmerson, 2009). Network ecology presents a framework for conceptualization and analysis of ecosystem function and its response to external perturbations. The concept of ecosystem refers to both the flow of energy and to species interactions. Interaction
strengths in complex food webs are discussed by Berlow et al. (2009). Before we begin to describe different types of networks, definitions of essential elements of network theory are described below.
Graph Pair-wise relations between two objects.
Degree Degree of the vertex of a graph is the number of edges incident on it.
Edge A link between two vertices in a network. When weighted denotes interaction strength.
Vertices A point where two or more lines, curves, or edges meet.
Flow dynamics The movement of resources (energy and information) on a network.
MONOLAYER NETWORK
Farage, et al. (2021) have presented a scheme to identify flow modules in ecological networks using infomap; a software package for landscape analysis. Fortin et al. (2021) have discussed the dynamics of ecological networks in response to environmental changes. It focuses on how the interplay between species interaction networks and spatial structures of landscape patches explains the observed variability in space and time. Newman and Girvan (2004) proposed algorithms to divide network nodes into densely connected subgroups, which represent community structure. The authors presented a measure to determine the strength of identified community structures. Readers are referred to a book on the subject by Newman (Newman, 2010). Algorithms have been designed to remove edges from the network iteratively. These algorithms are based on graph partitioning ideas. It finds groups of nodes with dense connections with sparser intergroup connections. The network is broken into its communities by these clustering algorithms. Newman and Girvan also proposed a measure to determine the strength of communities thus identified. A typical monolayer network is shown in Fig. (1).
A food - web consists of food – chains linked with migration (Kitching, et al. 1987). Food chains are of two types: linear and non-linear. Fig. (2) shows a representative terrestrial food - web which exemplifies a monolayer network given in Fig. (1a). It consists of three food chains (Murray & de Ruiter, 1991).
Grass - Grasshopper – Frog – HawkGrass – Mouse – HawkGrass – Rabbit - HawkFig. (1)) (a) Connected nodes. Nodes represent patches. Species dispersal in a patchy environment is shown. (b) A Monolayer Network. The keystone species patch is shown in red. A keystone species is a critical source of food for predators; e.g., Antarctic krill, Canadian snowshoe hares, etc. Wolves and sea otters are predators that control populations and the range of their prey. Loss of a keystone species means loss of ecosystem services as it would no longer be functional. Three monolayer networks are linked together.Hawk is a keystone species. Grass is the primary producer. Grasshoppers and frogs are herbivores. Hawk is a predator. Grass – Grasshopper system is the consumer resource system. Frog–Hawk is an example of a weak trophic interaction. Fig. (2) presents a food chain with these species. Fig. (3) presents an aquatic food chain.
Fig. (2)) A Terrestrial Food – web (part of an ecosystem). It consists of many food chains. Fig. (3)) Network structure of an Antarctic Food – web. Fish is the ‘keystone species’ (Source: Wikimedia).TYPES OF FOOD CHAINS
Linear food chain. Oscillation at a trophic level induces the same type of oscillation at the higher trophic level.
Nonlinear food chain. Oscillation at a trophic level does not necessarily induce the same type of oscillation. Induced oscillations could be nonlinear oscillations (a stable limit cycle) or chaotic oscillations, which consist of many unstable oscillations generating order. Breaking down a food web structure into linear and non-linear food chains holds the key to the analysis of both these properties: EngineeringandEcological resilience. A few key terms are introduced to the reader before he/ she attempts to apply network theory to ecological modeling.
Coupled dynamics.
