Biology

Chimpanzees have never been more threatened with extinction than they are today. This book focuses on one chimpanzee group, the Sonso community, living in a tropical rain forest, the Budongo Forest in western Uganda. The book builds up a detailed picture of the forest environment of these apes, their social and behavioural adaptations, and the range of threats they face at the present time. The facts presented in the book summarize the author’s own work and that of the many students and colleagues who have worked with the Budongo Forest Project, which the author founded, over the years from 1990 to the present day. Comparisons are made with other chimpanzee field studies. A picture is built up to show the Sonso community living in a complex environment to which it has adapted well. The diet, culture, social behaviour, and social organization of the chimpanzees are described in detail. Focus then shifts to the various dangers they face in the modern context of increasing pressure from local hunters who put snares in the forest, and from a local agribusiness which threatens to engulf the forest. A careful appraisal of the future for these animals is made, ending with a note of hope for their survival if the national organizations that exist to protect them can become more effective.

About 99.9% of vertebrate species reproduce sexually. This makes the exceptional 0.1%—the asexual or clonal reproducers—fascinating in their own right, and also uniquely instructive about the biological significance of alternative reproductive modes. This book describes the genetics, ecology, natural history, and evolution of all of the world's approximately 100 “species” of vertebrate animal that routinely display one form or another of clonal or quasi-clonal reproduction. The book investigates the astounding realm of sexual abstinence, from the levels of DNA molecules and somatic cells to whole animals and natural populations. Also described is how scientists have learned to mimic and extend nature's own clonal processes by engineering perfect copies of genes, genomes, and whole animals in the laboratory. By considering the many facets of sexual abstinence and clonal reproduction in vertebrate animals, new light is also shed on the biological meaning and ramifications of standard sexuality.

Community ecology is the study of the interactions between populations of coexisting species. This book provides a state of the art in theory, models and applications of community ecology, with special attention to its topology, dynamics, the importance of spatial and temporal scale as well as applications to emerging problems in human-dominated ecosystems (including the restoration and reconstruction of viable communities). It adopts a mainly theoretical approach and focuses on the use of network-based theories and models which are little explored in standard community ecology textbooks. The book includes discussion of the effects of biotic invasions on natural communities, the linking of ecological network structure to empirically measured community approaches, the effects of evolution on community patterns and processes, and the integration of fundamental interactions into ecological networks. A final chapter indicates future research directions for the discipline. As such, this book provides ideal graduate seminar course material. Community Ecology will be suitable for graduate-level students as well as professional researchers in the fields of population and community ecology, network biology and theoretical ecology.

The field of molecular evolution has experienced explosive growth in recent years due to the rapid accumulation of genetic sequence data, continuous improvements to computer hardware and software, and the development of sophisticated analytical methods. The increasing availability of large genomic data sets requires powerful statistical methods to analyse and interpret them, generating both computational and conceptual challenges for the field. This book provides a comprehensive coverage of modern statistical and computational methods used in molecular evolutionary analysis, such as maximum likelihood and Bayesian statistics. It describes the models, methods and algorithms that are most useful for analysing the ever-increasing supply of molecular sequence data, with a view to furthering our understanding of the evolution of genes and genomes. The book emphasizes essential concepts rather than mathematical proofs. It includes detailed derivations and implementation details, as well as numerous illustrations, worked examples, and exercises.

The overexploitation of wildlife is a key concern for conservationists worldwide. Indeed, wildlife conservation and sustainable use have recently become centrepieces in conservation and development research. Assessment, interpretation, and ultimate action in a scientific study of exploited species must consider numerous factors: from the biology, habitat requirements, and population dynamics of the species in question, to the relationships that people have with their environment and the species within it. Any long-term management plan must ensure that people and wildlife can coexist — otherwise it is doomed to failure. This book provides a practical and integrated approach to carrying out research on the conservation of exploited species. It is relevant to both tropical and temperate biomes, and is applicable to all exploited species. It describes both the practical (field) and theoretical (modelling) techniques for obtaining and interpreting information, integrating biological, social, economic, and institutional analyses. It also demonstrates how to translate information into effective action through appropriate interventions, from legislation to changing people's attitudes.

This book provides cutting-edge but basic conservation science for the inhabitants of both developing as well as developed countries. Authoritative chapters are written by top names in conservation biology. Important topics such as balancing conversion and human needs, climate change, conservation planning, designing and analyzing conservation research, ecosystem services, endangered species management, extinctions, fire, habitat loss, and invasive species are covered. Numerous textboxes describing additional relevant material or case studies are also included. The book is written for undergraduate and graduate students as well as scientists, managers, and personnel in governmental and non-governmental organizations. The book has all the necessary topics to become a required reading for various undergraduate and graduate conservation-related courses. English is kept at a level comprehensible to people with English as a second language. Overall, this book represents a project that the conservation community has deemed worthy of support by donations of time and effort.

This book presents the theory and practice for creating effective education and outreach programs for conserving biodiversity, addressing a variety of environmental issues, and living sustainably. It describes an exciting array of techniques for enhancing school resources, marketing environmental messages, using mass media, developing partnerships for conservation, and designing on-site programs for natural areas and community centers. Vivid case studies from around the world illustrate techniques and describe planning, implementation, and evaluation procedures, enabling readers to implement their own new ideas effectively.

This book explains the history and strategy of the intelligent design creationist movement, which is headquartered at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle, WA. The movement’s twenty-year “Wedge Strategy,” implementation of which began in 1998, is aimed at bringing intelligent design into American public schools, public policymaking, and the cultural mainstream. Beginning with a brief history of the movement and the authentication of the “Wedge Document,” in which the Wedge Strategy is outlined, the book critiques the incompetent science and rhetorical tactics of the movement’s leaders: Douglas Axe, Paul Chien, Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe, and William Dembski. The movement’s own documents reveal its religious funding sources and its execution of all phases of the strategy except the production of genuine scientific data, including its development of a legal defense against challenges to the teaching of intelligent design. The book recounts the movement’s political maneuvering in its effort to influence science curricula in individual states, most notably Kansas and Ohio, and to develop political support among members of Congress. Importantly, the book documents the centrality of religion to intelligent design, its leaders’ associations with Christian extremists, its continuity with earlier forms of creationism, and its ambitions for academic legitimacy. This 2007 edition provides updates on the movement’s efforts in Kansas and Ohio and offers a firsthand account by Barbara Forrest, who was an expert witness for the plaintiffs, of the landmark legal case involving intelligent design, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005).

Some six million years ago, two branches of the evolutionary tree diverged: one that led to chimpanzees and bonobos, and one that led to us. Extraordinary advances in our ability to obtain and process DNA sequence information permits scientists to address fundamental questions about the evolutionary histories of varied species, including our own. Ascertaining the sequence of the genome — the complete complement of DNA information — from both humans and chimpanzees allows scientists to address such questions as: which genes were subjected to natural selection along our evolutionary branch? Are these the genetic changes that made us human? The book addresses these and other questions about human evolutionary history, including our domestication of other animals and of plants. It also explores how researchers use the tools of molecular genetics and population genetics theory to unravel the secrets of the natural histories of genes and genomes. Much like detectives looking to ascertain the circumstances behind a crime, these scientists can develop and test inferences about the nature of the natural selection and other evolutionary pressures that have shaped the organisms that harbor these genes.

Many infectious diseases of recent concern, including malaria, cholera, plague, and Lyme disease, have emerged from complex ecological communities involving multiple hosts and their associated parasites. Several of these diseases appear to be influenced by human impacts on the environment, for example intensive agriculture, clear-cut forestry, and habitat loss, and fragmentation. Such environmental impacts may affect many species at trophic levels below or above the host community. Thus, the prevalence of both human and wildlife diseases may alter in unanticipated ways as a result of changes in the structure and composition of ecological communities. This book highlights exciting advances in theoretical and empirical research aimed towards a better understanding of the importance of community structure in the emergence of infectious diseases. To date, research on host-parasite systems has tended to explore only a limited set of community interactions, and little effort has been devoted to addressing complications, such as multiple-host-multiple-parasite systems; sequential hosts acting on different trophic levels; alternate hosts with spatially varying interactions; or stochastic effects resulting from small population size in at least one alternate host species. The chapters in this book illustrate aspects of community ecology that influence pathogen transmission rates and disease dynamics in a wide variety of study systems. It communicates a clear message: studies of epidemiology can be approached from the perspective of community ecology, and students of community ecology can contribute significantly to epidemiology.