If they are to survive, cities need healthy chunks of the world’s ecosystems to persist; yet cities, like parasites, grow and prosper by local destruction of these very ecosystems. In this absorbing and wide-ranging book, Eldredge and Horenstein use New York City as a microcosm to explore both the positive and the negative sides of the relationship between cities, the environment, and the future of global biodiversity. They illuminate the mass o ...
The Fish in the Forest is an elegantly written, beautifully illustrated exploration of the complex web of relationships between the salmon of the Pacific Northwest and the surrounding ecosystem. Dale Stokes shows how nearly all aspects of this fragile ecosystem—from streambeds to treetops, from sea urchins to orcas to bears, from rain forests to kelp forests—are intimately linked with the biology of the Pacific salmon. Illustrated with 70 stun ...
One of California's most remarkable wetlands, Suisun Marsh is the largest tidal marsh on the West Coast and a major feature of the San Francisco Estuary. This productive and unique habitat supports endemic species, is a nursery for native fishes, and is a vital link for migratory waterfowl. The 6,000-year-old marsh has been affected by human activity, and humans will continue to have significant impacts on the marsh as the sea level rises a ...
Environmental Winds challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global North prior to impacting the Global South. Instead, such formations have been constituted, transformed, and propelled through diverse, site-specific social interactions that complicate and defy divisions between 'global' and 'local.' The book brings the reader into the lives of Chinese scientists, officials, villagers, a ...
The North American freshwater fish fauna is the most diverse and thoroughly researched temperate fish fauna in the world. <i>Ecology of North American Freshwater Fishes</i> is the only textbook to provide advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers with an up-to-date and integrated view of the ecological and evolutionary concepts, principles, and processes involved in the formation and maintenance of this fauna. < ...
The West without Water documents the tumultuous climate of the American West over twenty millennia, with tales of past droughts and deluges and predictions about the impacts of future climate change on water resources. Looking at the region’s current water crisis from the perspective of its climate history, the authors ask the central question of what is «normal» climate for the West, and whether the relatively benign climate of the past centu ...
California is globally renowned for its biological diversity, including its wealth of unique, or <i>endemic,</i> species. Many reasons have been cited to explain this abundance: the complex geology and topography of its landscape, the special powers of its Mediterranean-type climate, and the historic and modern barriers to the wider dispersal of its flora and fauna. <i>Plant and Animal Endemism in California</i> compiles ...
Between extremes of climate farther north and south, the 38th North parallel line marks a temperate, middle latitude where human societies have thrived since the beginning of civilization. It divides North and South Korea, passes through Athens and San Francisco, and bisects Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada, where authors David and Janet Carle make their home. Former park rangers, the authors set out on an around-the-world journey in searc ...
Natural history, the deliberate observation of the environment, is arguably the oldest science. From purely practical beginnings as a way of finding food and shelter, natural history evolved into the holistic, systematic study of plants, animals, and the landscape. <i>Deep Things out of Darkness </i>chronicles the rise, decline, and ultimate revival of natural history within the realms of science and public discourse. Ecologist John ...
