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American Bison: A Natural History

Dale Lott

Jan van Wagtendonk and Kevin Shaffer (eds)

This book combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. The book ... More

This book combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. The book relates what is known about this iconic animal's life in the wild and its troubled history with humans. The book takes us on a journey into the bison's past and shares a compelling vision for its future, offering along the way a valuable introduction to North American prairie ecology. The book acquaints us with the social life and physiology of the bison, sharing stories about its impressive physical prowess and fascinating relationships. Describing the entire grassland community in which the bison live, it talks about the wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, grizzly bears, and other animals and plants, detailing the interdependent relationships among these inhabitants of a lost landscape. The book also traces the long and dramatic relationship between the bison and Native Americans, and gives a surprising look at the history of the hide hunts that delivered the coup de grace to the already dwindling bison population in a few short years. This book gives us a peek at the rich and unique ways of life that evolved in the heart of America. The book also dismantles many of the myths we have created about these ways of life, and about the bison in particular, to reveal the animal itself: ruminating, reproducing, and rutting in its full glory. This portrait of the bison ultimately becomes a plea to conserve its wildness and an eloquent meditation on the importance of the wild in our lives.Less

Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species

Michael Lannoo (ed.)

This book documents a major environmental crisis: rapidly declining amphibian populations and the developmental problems that are increasingly prevalent within many amphibian species. Horror stories ... More

This book documents a major environmental crisis: rapidly declining amphibian populations and the developmental problems that are increasingly prevalent within many amphibian species. Horror stories on this topic have been featured in the scientific and popular press over the past fifteen years, invariably asking what amphibian declines are telling us about the state of the environment. Are declines harbingers of devastated ecosystems or simply weird reflections of a peculiar amphibian world? This compendium — presenting new data, reviews of current literature, and comprehensive species accounts — reinforces what scientists have begun to suspect: that amphibians are a lens through which the state of the environment can be viewed more clearly. And, that the view is alarming and presages serious concerns for all life, including that of our own species. The first part of this work consists of more than fifty essays covering topics from the causes of amphibian population declines to conservation, surveys and monitoring, and education. The second part consists of species accounts describing the life history and natural history of every known amphibian species in the United States.Less

Amphibians and Reptiles of Baja California, Including Its Pacific Islands and the Islands in the Sea of Cortes

L. Grismer

The Baja California peninsula is home to many forms of life found nowhere else on earth. This, combined with the peninsula's rugged and inaccessible terrain, has made the area one of the last true ... More

The Baja California peninsula is home to many forms of life found nowhere else on earth. This, combined with the peninsula's rugged and inaccessible terrain, has made the area one of the last true biological frontiers of North America. This book is a guide to the amphibians and reptiles of a fascinating and remote region. The culmination of a quarter century of fieldwork on the Baja peninsula and an exploration of more than one hundred of its islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortés, this book gives information on the identification, distribution, natural history, and taxonomy of each species of amphibian and reptile found there. Preliminary accounts of the life history of many of the salamanders, frogs, toads, turtles, lizards, and snakes are reported here for the first time, and several species that were almost unknown to science are illustrated. The book also contains new data on species distribution and on the effect of the isolated landscape of the peninsula and its islands on the evolutionary process.Less

Ardipithecus kadabba: Late Miocene Evidence from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia

Yohannes Haile-Selassie (ed.)

The second volume in a series dedicated to fossil discoveries made in the Afar region of Ethiopia, this work contains description of the geological context and paleoenvironment of the early hominid ... More

The second volume in a series dedicated to fossil discoveries made in the Afar region of Ethiopia, this work contains description of the geological context and paleoenvironment of the early hominid Ardipithecus kadabba. This research, carried out by an international team, describes Middle Awash late Miocene faunal assemblages recovered from sediments firmly dated to between 5.2 and 5.8 million years ago. Compared to other assemblages of similar age, the Middle Awash record is unparalleled in taxonomic diversity, composed of 2,760 specimens representing at least sixty five mammalian genera. This evaluation of the vertebrates from the end of the Miocene in Africa provides detailed morphological and taxonomic descriptions of dozens of taxa, including species new to science. It also incorporates results from analyses of paleoenvironment, paleobiogeography, biochronology, and faunal turnover around the Pliocene-Miocene boundary, opening a new window on the evolution of mammals, African fauna, and its environments.Less

Beyond Cladistics: The Branching of a Paradigm

Sandra Knapp (ed.)

Cladistics, or phylogenetic systematics — an approach to discovering, unraveling, and testing hypotheses of evolutionary history — took hold during a turbulent and acrimonious time in the history of ... More

Cladistics, or phylogenetic systematics — an approach to discovering, unraveling, and testing hypotheses of evolutionary history — took hold during a turbulent and acrimonious time in the history of systematics. During this period — the 1960s and 1970s — much of the foundation of modern systematic methodology was established as cladistic approaches became widely accepted. Virtually complete by the end of the 1980s, the wide perception has been that little has changed. This volume vividly illustrates that cladistic methodologies have continued to be developed, improved upon, and effectively used in ever widening analytically imaginative ways.Less

Big Ecology: The Emergence of Ecosystem Science

David Coleman

This book documents historically fruitful ecological collaborations in the early years of studying large ecosystems in the United States. As the book explains, the concept of the ecosystem—a local ... More

This book documents historically fruitful ecological collaborations in the early years of studying large ecosystems in the United States. As the book explains, the concept of the ecosystem—a local biological community and its interactions with its environment—has given rise to many institutions and research programs, like the National Science Foundation's program for Long Term Ecological Research. This book's insider account of this important and fascinating trend toward big science takes us from the paradigm of collaborative interdisciplinary research, starting with the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957, through the International Biological Program (IBP) of the late 1960s and early 1970s, to the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) programs of the 1980s.Less

Biodiversity Conservation in Costa Rica: Learning the Lessons in a Seasonal Dry Forest

Gordon Frankie (ed.)

The beautiful tropical dry forest of northwest Costa Rica, with its highly seasonal rainfall and diversely vegetated landscape, is disappearing even more rapidly than Costa Rica's better-known rain ... More

The beautiful tropical dry forest of northwest Costa Rica, with its highly seasonal rainfall and diversely vegetated landscape, is disappearing even more rapidly than Costa Rica's better-known rain forest, primarily because it has been easier to convert to agriculture. This book offers a comprehensive look at the ecology, biodiversity, and conservation status of this endangered and fragile region. The chapters examine the major plant and animal groups living in the dry forest and present the first technical evaluation of Costa Rica's conservation efforts. As they assess the status of each area of specialty in the dry forest, the chapters also look beyond this particular region to show how its plants and animals are ecologically and evolutionarily connected to other geographic areas in Costa Rica and Central America. These chapters cover topics such as watershed and coastal management, plant phenology, pollination, insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. They also consider the socioeconomic, policy, legal, and political aspects of biodiversity conservation. The book concludes with an important synthesis of the chapter's recommendations on future directions, policies, and actions that will better conserve biodiversity in Costa Rica and other neotropical forests as well.Less

Biodiversity Response to Climate Change in the Middle Pleistocene: The Porcupine Cave Fauna from Colorado

Anthony Barnosky (ed.)

This book chronicles the discovery and analysis of animal fossils found in one of the most important paleontological sites in the world: Porcupine Cave, located at an elevation of 9,500 feet in the ... More

This book chronicles the discovery and analysis of animal fossils found in one of the most important paleontological sites in the world: Porcupine Cave, located at an elevation of 9,500 feet in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. With tens of thousands of identified specimens, this site has become the key source of information on the fauna of North America's higher elevations between approximately 1 million and 600,000 years ago, a period that saw the advance and retreat of glaciers numerous times. Until now, little has been understood about how this dramatic climate change affected life during the middle Pleistocene. In addition to presenting data from Porcupine Cave, this study also presents analysis on what the data from the site show about the evolutionary and ecological adjustments that occurred in this period, shedding light on how one of the world's most pressing environmental concerns—global climate change—can influence life on earth.Less

The Biology and Ecology of Giant Kelp Forests

David R. Schiel and Michael S. Foster

The largest seaweed, giant kelp (Macrocystis) is the fastest growing and most prolific of all plants found on earth. Growing from the seafloor and extending along the ocean surface in lush canopies, ... More

The largest seaweed, giant kelp (Macrocystis) is the fastest growing and most prolific of all plants found on earth. Growing from the seafloor and extending along the ocean surface in lush canopies, giant kelp provides an extensive vertical habitat in a largely two-dimensional seascape. It is the foundation for one of the most species-rich, productive, and widely distributed ecological communities in the world. This review takes the reader from Darwin's early observations to contemporary research, providing a historical perspective for the modern understanding of giant kelp evolution, biogeography, biology, and physiology. The chapters furnish a discussion of kelp species and forest ecology worldwide, with considerations of human uses and abuses, management and conservation, and the current and likely future impacts of global change.Less

Biostratigraphy and Vertebrate Paleontology of the San Timoteo Badlands, Southern California

L. Barry Albright

This book describes forty-two fossil taxa recovered during a study of the San Timoteo Badlands that used magnetobiostratigraphy to develop a temporal framework for addressing the tectonic evolution ... More

This book describes forty-two fossil taxa recovered during a study of the San Timoteo Badlands that used magnetobiostratigraphy to develop a temporal framework for addressing the tectonic evolution of southern California over the last six million years. For the Pliocene, small mammals are an effective means of correlating a magnetostratigraphy to the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale when radioisotopic dates are unobtainable.Less