Aber, John D. and Jerry Melillo. 2001. Terrestrial Ecosystems 2^nd ed. International Thompson Pub.
Presents basic concepts ecosystem studies.

Beardsley, Tim. 1997. "When Nutrients Turn Noxious: A little nitrogen is nice, but too much is toxic," Scientific American , 276(6):24-25.
A little nitrogen is nice, but too much is toxic.

Beattie, Andrew J. 1985. The Evolutionary Ecology of Ant-Plant Mutualisms (Cambridge Studies in Ecology) Cambridge Univ. Press.
A fascinating look at the ecological and evolutionary processes that mold ant-plant interactions.

Begon, Michael, C. R. Townsend, J. L. Harper 1998. Ecology: Individuals, Populations and Communities Blackwell Science.
A good general ecology text.

Blum, Joel D. et al. 2002. "Mycorrhizal weathering of apatite as an important calcium source in base-poor forest ecosystems." Nature 417, 729-731 (2002)
Studies at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire reveal a previously unknown calcium pool in the soil.

Boitani, Luigi and Todd K. Fuller (eds). 2000. Research Techniques in Animal Ecology (Methods and Cases in Conservation Science). Columbia Univ. Press.
A good account of central theoretical and methodological controversies in the field of animal ecology.

Brower, James E., et al. 1997. Field and Laboratory Methods for General Ecology, 4^th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Co.
A good introductory lab manual in ecology.

Brown, James H. and Leslie A Real (eds). 1991. Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers With Commentaries. Univ. of Chicago Press.
A useful review of ecological history.

Busch, David E. and Joel C. Trexler (eds). 2002. Monitoring Ecosystems: Interdisciplinary Approaches for Evaluating Ecoregional Initiatives. Island Press.
The authors present practical advice about ecological monitoring in ecoregional planning.

Campbell, G.S. and J.M. Norman. 1997. An Introduction to Environmental Biophysics, Secaucus, NJ: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
A helpful overview of thermodynamics and material flows in ecosystems.

Carbone, C. & Gittleman, J.L. 2002. "A common rule for the scaling of carnivore density". Science, 295, 2273 - 2276, (2002).
Every kilogram of meat-eating mammal from weasels to bears needs 111 kilograms of prey to sustain it.

Carpenter, Steve R. and Elena Bennett. 2002. "P Soup: Humanity's Impact on the Phosphorus Cycle." World Watch. 15(2): 24-32.
Describes a huge global acceleration of the natural phosphorus cycle.

Case, T. J. 1999. An Illustrated Guide to Theoretical Ecology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
An introduction to the mathematics of ecology.

Chadwick, O A. et al. 1999. "Changing sources of nutrients during four million years of ecosystem development." Nature 397: 491-497.
Nutrient cycles in Hawaii's volcanic soils.

Chapelle, Francis H., et al. 2002. "A hydrogen-based subsurface microbial community dominated by methanogens" Nature 415, 312 - 315 (2002).
Describes the discovery of a unique hot-spring microbial community composed primarily of hydrogen-consuming, methane-producing Archaea.

Ciofi, Claudio. 1999. "The Komodo Dragon." Scientific American 280 (3): 84-92.
On dry islands with low biological productivity, reptiles with low metabolic rates sometimes fill the role of top carnivores.

Coleman, C. and P. F. Hendrix (eds). 2000. Invertebrates as Webmasters in Ecosystems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shows how invertebrates play a central role in ecosystems.

Cunningham, William P., et al (eds). 1998. Environmental Encyclopedia. Detroit, MI: Gale Research.
A comprehensive collection of articles on a wide variety of environmental topics.

Cushing, C. E. and J. David Allan. 2001. Streams: Their Ecology and Life. New York: Academic Press.
An illustrated fieldbook to the plants and animals of freshwater streams.

Daily, Gretchen, ed. 1997. Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Covelo, CA: Island Press.
Brings together world-renowned scientists from a variety of disciplines to examine the character and value of ecosystem services.

Del Giorgio, Paul A. and Carlos M. Duarte. 2002. "Respiration in the open ocean." Nature 420, 379 - 384 (2002).
This review concludes that marine organisms are responsible for a major component of the total carbon flux of the biosphere.

Dickinson, Gordon and Kevin Murphy. 1998. Ecosystems. London: Routledge.
A general introduction to ecosystem ecology.

Dodson, S. I, et al. 1998. Ecology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
An easy to read introduction to the history and science of ecology.

Eggermont, H. and D. Verschuren. 2003. "Impact of soil erosion in disturbed tributary drainages on the benthic invertebrate fauna of Lake Tanganyika, East Africa." Biological Conservation 113 (1): 99-109.
Siltation is a leading cause of aquatic ecosystem damage.

Enquist, B.J. & Niklas, K.J. 2002. "Global allocation rules for patterns of biomass partitioning in seed plants." Science, 295, 1517 - 1520.
Shows that the ratio of above-to below-ground tissue is constant across a wide range of plants.

Farhig, L. 2001. "How much habitat is enough?" Biological Conservation. 100(1): 65-74.
A useful discussion of habitat requirements for rare and endangered species.

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.

Feinsinger, Peter. 2001. Designing Field Studies for Biodiversity Conservation. Covelo, CA: Island Press.
A useful guide to using ecological principles in conservation work.

Gillman, Michael and Rosemary Hails. 1997. An Introduction to Ecological Modeling. Blackwell Science Ltd., Oxford.
A general overview of the topic of ecological modeling.

Golley, F. B. 1998. A Primer for Environmental Literacy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
An easy introduction to ecology with an extensive reading list.

Gotelli, Nicholas J. 2001. A Primer of Ecology 3^rd ed. Sinauer Assoc.
A short text that explains the mathematical models most commonly used in population and community ecology.

Grant, W. E., et al., 1997. Ecology and Natural Resource Management: Systems Analysis and Simulation. New York: Wiley.

Gunderson, Lance H. and C. S. Holling (eds). 2001. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Systems of Humans and Nature Island Press.
A new work by the originators of resilience theory.

Haberl, H. 1997. "Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production as an Environmental Indicator: Implications for Sustainable Development," Ambio 26(3):
Humans now appropriate about 40 percent of all net primary productivity. How much more can we consume without impoverishing the rest of the world?

Kay, R.F., R.H. Madden, C. VanSchaik, and D. Higdon. 1997. "Primate Species Richness is Determined by Plant Productivity: Implications for Conservation," Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 94(24):13023-13027.
We can't preserve the entire range of biodiversity if we set aside only rocks, ice, snow, and deserts.

Klironomos, J. N. and M. Hart. 2001. "Food-web dynamics: Animal nitrogen swap for plant carbon." Nature 410 (6829): 651-652.
A fungal symbiont supplies animal nitrogen to forest trees in exchange for plant carbon.

Krebs, Charles J. 2000. Ecology: The Experimental Analysis of Distribution and Abundance. Addison-Wesley Pub.
A good general ecology text.

Luoma, Jon R. 2000. The Hidden Forest : The Biography of an Ecosystem Henry Holt.
The fascinating biology of the old-growth, Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon.

Manahan, Stanley E. 2001. Fundamentals of Environmental Chemistry 2^nd ed. Lewis Publishers.
A good introduction to the subject.

Margulis, L. et al. 2000. Environmental Evolution: Effects of the Origin and Evolution of Life on Planet Earth (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
A new look by some of leading evolutionists of how living organisms have modified the earth.

Markert, B.A., et al. 2003. Bioindicators and Biomonitors. Elsevier.
Covers bioindicators/biomonitoring of trace metals in the environment.

McGarigal, Kevin , Sam Cushman, and Susan Stafford. 2000. Multivariate Statistics for Wildlife and Ecology Research. Springer Verlag.
An important topic for ecosystem ecology.

McNeill, Alexander, R., 1999. Energy for Animal Life. Oxford, UK: Oxford Animal Biology Series.
A comprehensive discussion of how animals obtain and use energy.

Meffe. Gary K., et al. 2002. Ecosystem Management: Adaptive Community-Based Conservation. Island Press.
An innovative textbook on applying the principles of ecosystem management.

Molles, M. C. 1999. Ecology: Concepts and Applications. Dubuque, IA: WCB/McGraw-Hill Co.
An excellent textbook of general ecology.

Newman, Michael C. and Michael A. Unger. 2003. Fundamentals of Ecotoxicology. Lewis Publishers.
A detailed examination of the movement and effects of chemical contaminants in our environment.

Nierenberg, Danielle. 2001. "Nitrogen: The Other cycle." World Watch 14(2): 30-38.
Disrupting the nitrogen cycle could be as damaging as our changes in the carbon cycle.

Odum, E. P. 1997. Ecology: A Bridge Between Science and Society. Sunderland, Mass: Sinauer.
Basic ecology from a systems understanding.

Oertli, Beat et al. 2002. "Does size matter? The relationship between pond area and biodiversity." Biological Conservation 104(1): 59-70
Do larger areas support more species? In 80 Swiss ponds, little correlation was found between size and species diversity.

Pastor, J. and Y. Cohen. 1997. "Herbivores, the Functional Diversity of Plants Species, and the Cycling of Nutrients in Ecosystems," Theoretical Population Biology 51(3):165-179.
Diversity and plant/animal interactions play key roles in ecosystem functions.

Pauly, Daniel and Jay Maclean. 2002. In a Perfect Ocean: The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean. Island Press.
While the effects of a fisheries collapses on local economies and fishing-dependent communities have generated much discussion, little attention has been paid to their impacts on the overall health of the ocean's ecosystems.

Perakis, S. S. & Hedin, L. O. 2002. Nitrogen loss from unpolluted South American forests mainly via dissolved organic compounds. Nature, 415, 416 - 419, (2002).
Scientists are surprised to find that clean forests use nitrogen differently to polluted ones emphasizing the effect that humans have on the planet's nitrogen cycle

Primack, Richard B. 2000. A Primer of Conservation Biology. Sinauer Assoc.
A good introduction to the field.

Rawn, Dorothea F.K., et al. 2001. "Historical contamination of Yukon Lake sediments by PCBs and organochlorine pesticides: influence of local sources and watershed characteristics." The Science of the Total Environment 280(1-3): 17-37.
Analysis of sediment cores from eight lakes in the Yukon and British Columbia point to long-range air transport as the source of DDT and PCBs in water and fish.

Rensberger, B. 1999. "Biodiversity: The Final Countdown," Audubon 101(6): 64-69. Biologist E. O.
Wilson reflects on losses of biological diversity.

Ricklefs, Robert and Gary L. Miller. 1998. Ecology 4^th ed. W. H. Freeman & Co.
A popular general ecology text for undergraduate students.

Ricklefs, Robert E. 1997. The Economy of Nature 4^th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman.
A good general ecology textbook.

Rodiguez, J. et al. 2001. "Mesoscale vertical motion and the size structure of phytoplankton in the ocean". Nature 410 (2826): 360 - 363.
Photosynthesis and predation among plankton are primary determinants of energy flow in the ocean.

Rojstaczer, S., Sterling, S. M. & Moore, N. J. "Human appropriation of photosynthesis products." Science, 294, 2549 - 2552, (2001).
Recalculation of human appropriation of net primary productivity suggests that it could be anywhere between 10 and 50 percent.

Rosenzweig, Michael L. 1995. Species Diversity in Space and Time. Cambridge Univ. Press.
A good text for understanding community ecology.

Semeniuk, Robert. 2001. "Do Bears Fish in the Woods? Scientific detective work has discovered why a delicate Canadian ecosystem is changing." The Ecologist December 2001.
British Columbia's 80,000 to 120,000 bears could be transferring 60 million kg of salmon tissue into the rainforest, accounting for half of the nitrogen fixed by some old-growth trees. As salmon disappear, the forest is changing too.

Schoener T. W., et al. 2001. "Predators increase the risk of catastrophic extinction of prey populations." Nature 412, 183-186 (12 July 2001).
After hurricane Floyd swept across the Bahamas, lizard populations on islands on which there were no predators recovered to pre-hurricane levels, while those with lizard predators went extinct.

Smil, Vaclav. 2002. The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change. MIT Press.
A wide-ranging overview of the biosphere.

Soule, Michael E. and Gordon H. Orians (eds) 2001. Conservation Biology: Research Priorities for the Next Decade. Island Press.

Sterner, R. W., and J.J. Elser. 2002. Ecological Stoichiometry: The Biology of Elements from Molecules to the Biosphere. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ.
A study of the balance of energy and multiple chemical elements in living systems.

Tyler, P. A. (ed). 2003. Ecosystems of the Deep Oceans. Elsevier.
A good compilation of knowledge about abyssal ecosystems.

Vitousek, P. M. et al. 1997. "Human Alteration of the Global Nitrogen Cycle: Causes and Consequences," Issues in Ecology Number 1, Spring 1997.
Published by the Ecological Society of America.

Vitousek, P. M. et al. 1997. "Human Domination of the Earth's Ecosystems," Science (U.S.) 277: 494-499.
A crude but useful estimate that humans have transformed between one-third and one-half of the land surface.

Vitousek, P. M., Ehrlich, P. R. & Matson, P.A. 1986."Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis." Bioscience, 36, 368 - 373, (1986).
A much-quoted estimate of our appropriation of net primary productivity of the biosphere.

Vogler, A.P. and A. Welsh. 1997. "Phylogeny of North American Cicindela tiger beetles inferred from multiple mitochondrial DNA sequences," Molecular and Phylogenetic Evolution. 8(2):225-235.
Molecular biology can be a valuable tool in taxonomy.

Wetzel, Robert G. 2001. Limnology: Lake and River Ecosystems 3^rd ed. New York: Academic Press.
A comprehensive textbook of freshwater ecology.