Additional Readings

Agrawal, A. A. and P.A.Van Zandt. 2002. "The community ecology of live long and prosper." Trend sin Ecol. Evol 17, 62 (2002). A study of sawflies feeding on birch trees in Finland, is presented as evidence against neutrality theories of species' patterns of distribution and abundance.

Allaby, Michael. 1999. A dictionary of Plant Sciences 2^nd ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. A comprehensive introduction to botany.

Altieri, M.A. 1999. "The ecological role of biodiversity in agroecosystems." Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 74: 19-31. Biodiversity is not just important in wilderness preserves.

Baskin, Y. 1999. The Work of Nature: How the Diversity of Life Sustains Us. Covelo, CA: Island Press. The benefits of biodiversity.

Begon, Michael, C. R. Townsend, and J. L. Harper. 1998. Ecology : Individuals, Populations and Communities. Blackwell Science. Combines basic ecology with environmental science.

Bell, G., M.J. Lechowicz and M.J. Waterway. 2000. "Environmental heterogeneity and species diversity of forest sedges." Journal of Ecology 88, 67 - 87 (2000). Canadian transplantation studies don't show any powerful degree of local adaptation. Sometimes the rarest species is the most successful in a new location.

Bolnick, Daniel I. 2001. "Intraspecific competition favors niche width expansion in Drosophila melanogaste." Nature 410 (6827): 463 - 466. When interspecific competition is reduced, competition within a species becomes a potent evolutionary force leading to rapid diversification.

Brian A. Maurer 1999. Untangling Ecological Complexity : The Macroscopic Perspective Univ. of Chicago Press. Advocates a broad, pluralistic approach to global problems by expanding the spatial and temporal scale of community ecology.

Bright, Christopher. 1999. "Invasive Species: Pathogens of Globalization." Foreign Policy. Fall 1999. With increased world trade, invasive species have become a policy issue as well as an ecological threat.

Bronmark, Christer and Lars-Anders Hansson. 1989. The Biology of Lakes and Ponds. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. A good introductory text in limnology.

Buchmann, Stephen L. and Gary Paul Nabhan. 1996. The Forgotten Pollinators. Covelo, CA: Island Press. A lively and fascinating account of the ecological and cultural context of plant-pollinator relationships.

Byers, J. E. and L. Goldwasser. 2001. "Exposing the mechanism and timing of impact of nonindigenous species on native species." Ecology 82, 1330-1343 (2001). The impacts of invading species may go unnoticed until it's too late, this study suggests.

Chave, J., H.C. Muller-Landau and S.A. Levin. 2002. "Comparing Classical Community Models: Theoretical Consequences for Patterns of Diversity." American Naturalist 159, 1 - 23 (2002). A team from France's national research agency, showed that both niche and neutral ecological models can reproduce natural patterns of species abundance.

Cao, Tim (ed). 1998. Behaviorial Ecology and Conservation Biology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. An interesting attempt to link behavioral ecology and conservation biology.

Chapin, F.S., et al. 1997. "Biotic Control Over the Functioning of Ecosystems." Science 277(5325): 500-504. Biological communities shape their environments.

Curtis, T. P., W.T. Sloan and J.W, Scannell. 2002. "Estimating prokaryotic diversity and its limits." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, doi:10.1073/pnas. 142680199. There could be more species of bacteria in your back yard soil than all the species in the ocean, say UK researchers.

DeMorales, C. M., et al. 2001. "Caterpillar-induced nocturnal plant volatiles repel conspecific females." Nature 410 (6828): 577-580. Plants respond to insect herbivory by synthesizing and releasing complex blends of volatile compounds. Insects use these chemicals as clues for avoiding competition.

Doolittle, W. F. 2000. "Uprooting the Tree of Life." Scientific American 282(2): 90-95. A new look at evolutionary relationships suggests many more interconnections than previously thought.

Douds, D.D. and P.D. Millner. 1999. "Biodiversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in agroecosystems". Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 74:77-93. An introduction to the important symbiotic relationships between soil fungi and higher plants.

Downing, Amy L. and Mathew A. Liebold. 2002. "Ecosystem consequences of species richness and composition in pond food webs." Nature 416: 837-841. Indirect evidence suggests that species richness affect aquatic ecosystem attributes through indirect effects and trophic interactions among species.

Driscoll, Don A. 1998 "Genetic Structure, Metapopulation Processes and Evolution Influence the Conservation Strategies for Two Endangered Frog Species." Biological Conservation 83(1): 43-54. An undertaking of the genetic structure of a population is vital to conservation efforts. This article gives a specific example of this importance.

Falkowski, Paul G. 2002. "The Ocean's Invisible forest." Scientific American 287(2): 54-61. Marine algae play a much larger role than previously thought in balancing the earth's climate, absorbing about as much carbon each year as all terrestrial plants.

Gaston, Kevin J. and Tim M. Blackburn. Pattern and Process in MacroEcology. London: Blackwell Pub. Discusses the importance of landscape scale patterns and processes.

Gibbs, J.P. 2000. "Monitoring populations." Pp: 213-247 in: Boitani, L. and T.K. Fuller (Eds.) Research techniques in animal ecology. New York: Columbia University Press. Discusses technical issues in monitoring wildlife populations.

Giraud, T., et al. 2002. "Evolution of supercolonies: the Argentine ants of southern Europe." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99, 708 - 712 (2002). A single super-colony of ants, with millions of nests and billions of individuals, stretches 6,000 kilometres around Europe's Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts.

Hanski, Ilkka. 1999. Metapopulation Ecology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. An overview of theory and empirical studies in population ecology.

Hooper, D.U., et . al. 1997. "The Effects of Plant Composition and Diversity on Ecosystem Processes." Science 277(5330):1 1302-1305. Contrary to modelers predictions, biodiversity does play a role in stability.

Howard, D. J. and S. H. Berlocher. 1998. Endless forms: Species and Speciation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. A compendium of modern understanding of evolution.

Hubbell, S. P. 2001. The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography. New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press. Disregarding adaption and competitive advantages, neutral models consider only random chance as the source of ecosystem diversity.

Huber, Harald, et al. 2002. "A new phylum of Archaea represented by a nanosized hyperthermophilic symbiont." Nature 417, 63-67 (2 May 2002). A newly discovered organism from the inhospitable environs of a submarine hot vent has a tiny genome size, close to that calculated as the theoretical minimum for a living entity.

Hughes, J.B., G.C. Daily, and P.R. Ehrlich. 1997. "Population Diversity: Its Extent and Extinction." Science 278(5338): 689-692. An attempt to estimate the losses of distinct populations within species.

Humphries, Christopher J. 1999. Clasdistic Biogeography. Oxford, UK: The Oxford University Press. Cladistics uses distribution patterns of species to study their historic and evolutionary relationships.

Hunter, Malcolm L. 2001. Fundamentals of Conservation Biology. Blackwell Press. A basic textbook in conservation biology.

Kennedy, Theodore A., et al. 2002. "Biodiversity as a barrier to ecological invation." Nature 417: 636-638. Studies of small experimental grassland plots show that species diversity enhances invasion resistance by increasing crowding and species richness in localized plant neighbourhoods.

Klass, K.-D., et al. 2002. "Mantophasmatodea: a new insect order with extant members in the Afrotropics." Science published online (2002). The first new order of insects to be discovered for more than 80 years was found in the mountains of Namibia.

Lichatowich, J. 1999. Salmon Without Rivers. Covelo, CA: Island Press. A history of the Pacific salmon crisis.

MacArthur, R. H., and E. O. Wilson. 1963. "An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography." Evolution 17: 373-387. The classic study of island biogeography and one of the most influential papers in all of ecology.

MacArthur, Robert H. and E. O. Wilson. 2001. The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton Univ. Press. A reissue of their 1963 article.

Matteson, S. W., et al. 1999. "Changes in the status, distribution, and management of Double-crested Cormorants in Wisconsin." In USDA Tech. Bull. No. 1879. Symposium on Double-crested Cormorants: Population Status and Management Issues in the Midwest, p.27-46. December 1999. Discusses the causes and effects of a population explosion of cormorants in the Great Lakes.

Mauchamp, A. 1997. "Threats from Alien Plant Species in the Galapagos Islands." Conservation Biology 11(1): 260-263. An example of the effects introduced species have on endemic flora and fauna.

McCullough, Dale R., ed. 1996. Metapopulations and Wildlife Conservation. Covelo, CA: Island Press. Metapopulation theory is an important development in both conservation biology and wildlife management.

McNab, B.K. 1983. "Ecological and behavioral consequences of adaptation to various food sources" in: Eisenberg, J.F. and D.G. Kleiman (Eds.) Advances in the study of Mammalian behavior. American Society of Mammalogists, special pub. no. 7, p. 664-697. A classic study of evolutionary adaptation and specialization.

Meffe, G. K. and C. R. Carroll. 1997. Principles of Conservation Biology (2^nd ed.). An excellent introduction to conservation biology and population ecology.

Merbach, M. A., et al. "Mass march of termites into the deadly trap." Nature 415, 36 - 37 (2002) Nepenthes albomarginata, a carnivorous pitcher plant from Brunei, lures a single species of termite (Hospitalitermes bicolor) with white hairs that encircle the top of its bulbous, digestive fluid-filled pitcher. This is the only know example of a carnivorous plant that specializes so uniquely in its prey preference.

Morell, Virginia. 1997. "On the Origin of (Amazonian) Species." Discover 18(4): 56-64. An interesting account of a taxonomic expedition to the Amazon.

Morin, Peter J. 1999. Community Ecology. London: Blackwell. A good general text.

Nee, S. and R.M. May. 1997. "Extinction and the Loss of Evolutionary History." Science 278(5338): 692-694. The conditions under which species have evolved can never be recreated exactly.

Nielsen, Claus. 2001. Animal Evolution: Interrelationships of the Living Phyla (2^nd ed). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Analyzes the evolutionary relationships of the animal kingdom.

Orians, G.H. 1997. "Biodiversity and Terrestrial Ecosystem Processes." Science and Progress 80(Part 1): 45-63. Diversity is an important ecological factor.

Packer, C. and T.M. Caro. 1997. "Foraging Costs in Social Carnivores." Animal Behavior 54(5): 1317-1318. An examination of cooperation and selfishness among African lions.

Paracer, S. and V. Ahmadjian. 2000. Symbiosis: An Introduction to Biological Associations. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. An introduction to all aspects of symbiosis.

Quammen, David. 1998. "Planet of Weeds." Harper's October, 1998. With the loss of native species and invasions of exotics, we may soon live in a world of weeds.

Quan, R. C., et al. 2002. "Effects of human activities on migratory waterbirds at Lashihai Lake, China." Biological Conservation 108 (3): 273-279. There's not much room for nature in the world's most populous country.

Ricklefs, R. E. 1997. The Economy of Nature (4th ed.). New York: W.H. Freeman and Co. A highly recommended textbook in basic ecology.

Ricklefs, Robert and Dolph Schluter (eds). 1994. Species Diversity in Ecological Communities: Historical and Geographic Perspectives. University of Chicago Press. A comprehensive summary of community ecology.

Roberts, B.W. and M.E. Newman. 1996. "A Model for Evolution and Extinction." Journal of Theoretical Biology 180(1): 39-54. New ideas about what drives evolution and extinction.

Roubik, D. W. 2002. "The value of bees to the coffee harvest." Nature 417, 708 (2002). Coffee plants can self-pollinate but those pollinated by bees yield 50% more beans than plants that are self-pollinated.

Safina, Carl. 2001. "Albatross Wanderings." Audubon 103(1): 70-77, 85. A fascinating account of the travels of an albatross as it searches for food for its chick.

Schaller, G.B., et al. 1989. "The feeding ecology of giant pandas and Asiatic black bears in the Tangjiahe Reserve, Chinain: Gittleman" in J.L. (Ed.) Carnivore behavior, ecology and evolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,pg. 212-241. A classic study of the effects of specialized diet on panda populations in China.

Schluter, Dolph. 2001. The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation (Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution). Oxford Univ. Press. Discusses the causes and effects of divergent evolution.

Simberloff, D. 1997. "Flagships, umbrellas, and keystones: is single-species management passé in the landscape era?" Biological Conservation 83: 247-257. A good discussion of the concept of keystone species.

Smith, R. L. 1990. Ecology and Field Biology (4th ed.) New York: Harper and Row. A classic field ecology text.

Stiassny, M. L. J. and A. Meyer. 1999. "Cichlids of the Rift Lakes." Scientific American 280(2): 64-69. These fish exhibit some of the fastest speciation of any biological group, but human changes in their native lakes threatens their amazing diversity.

Tigas, L.A., et al. 2002. "Behavioral responses of bobcats and coyotes to habitat fragmentation and corridors in an urban environment." Biological Conservation 108(3): 299-306. Some species use corridors effectively.

Tilman, D. 1999. "Diversity and Production in European Grasslands." Science (US) 286: 1099-1100, November 5, 1999. Contrary to predictions from simple models, diversity can protect biological communities from disturbance.

Tilman, David and Peter Kareiva (eds). 1997. Spatial Ecology. Princeton Univ. Press. Biogeography and community ecology.

Tilman, David and Robert M. May (eds). 1982. Resource Competition and Community Structure. Princeton Univ. Press. A classic text on community ecology.

Tilman, David, et al. 1997. "The Influence of Functional Diversity and Composition on Ecosystem Processes." Science 277(5330): 1300-1302. Field evidence that biodiversity is important in ecological stability and resilience.

Topff, Howard. 1999. "Slave-making queens." Scientific American 281 (5): 84-90. Parasitic ants invade the colonies of other ants, kill their rulers, and enslave the workers.

Volpe, E. Peter and Peter A. Rosenbaum. 1999. Understanding Evolultion 6^th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Co. An introduction to principles of evolution.

Wardle, D.A., et al. 1997. "The Influence of Island Area on Ecosystem Properties." Science 277(5330): 1296-1299.

Wedin, David A. and David Tilman. 1996. "Influence of Nitrogen Loading and Species Composition on the Carbon Balance of Grasslands." Science 274(5293): 1720-1724. Excess nitrogen tends to favor weedy species in grassland communities.

West, P.M. and C. Packer. "Sexual selection, temperature and the lion's mane." Science 297, 1339 -1343 (2002). A study of African lions shows that females prefer dark-maned males.

Whittaker, Robert J. 1999. Island Biogeography: Ecology, Evolution and Conservation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. An excellent introduction to the science of island biogeography and its conservation implications.

Wroe, Stephen. 1999. "Killer kangaroos and other murderous marsupials." Scientific American 280(5): 68-74. Australian mammals were not all as cute as koalas. Some were as ferocious as they were bizarre. An interesting account of how evolution fills equivalent ecological roles in different biological communities.