Island Biogeography Ecology, evolution, and conservation - download pdf or read online

By Robert J. Whittaker

ISBN-10: 0198566123

ISBN-13: 9780198566120

Island biogeography is the learn of the distribution and dynamics of species in island environments. as a result of their isolation from extra common continental species, islands are perfect areas for special species to adapt, yet also they are locations of focused extinction. no longer unusually, they're commonly studied through ecologists, conservationists and evolutionary biologists alike.
There isn't any different fresh textbook dedicated completely to island biogeography, and a synthesis of the various contemporary advances is now past due. This moment variation builds at the luck and acceptance of the 1st, documenting the new advances during this intriguing box and explaining how islands were used as usual laboratories in constructing and trying out ecological and evolutionary theories. additionally, the ebook describes the most procedures of island formation, improvement and eventual dying, and explains the relevance of island environmental background to island biogeography. The authors display the large importance of islands as hotspots of biodiversity, and as locations from which disproportionate numbers of species were extinguished by means of human motion in old time. Many island species are this day threatened with extinction, and this paintings examines either the executive threats to their patience and a few of the mitigation measures that may be installed play with conservation options adapted to islands.

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Additional info for Island Biogeography Ecology, evolution, and conservation

Sample text

E. they are due to the changing volume of water in the sea), and others are due to relative adjustment of the elevation of the land surface (isostacy). This can be brought about by the removal of mass from the land causing uplift, as when an icecap melts, or by tectonic uplift. g. increased ice, water, or rock loading) or may be due to the movement of the island away from mid-ocean ridges and other areas that can support anomalous mass. In the right environment, coral reefs build around subsiding volcanoes, eventually forming atolls—an important category of tropical island.

Waterloo et al. 1997). As noted by J. D. Hooker in his lecture to the British Association in 1866, the climate and biota of islands tend to be more polar than those of continents in the same latitude, while intraannual temperature fluctuation is reduced (Williamson 1984). Islands near the equator frequently exhibit annual average temperature ranges of less than 1 ЊC, and even in temperate latitudes, the annual average ranges are less than 10 ЊC: for example, 8 ЊC in the case both of Valentia (Ireland) and the Scilly Isles.

Coral reefs are built by small coelenterate animals (corals) that secrete a calcareous skeleton. Within the tissues and calcareous skeleton, numerous algae and small plants are lodged. The algae are symbionts critical to reef formation, providing the food and oxygen supplement necessary to account for the energetics of coral colonies, while obtaining both growth sites and nutrients from the coral (Mielke 1989). Reef-building corals generally grow in waters less than 100 m deep (exceptionally they can be found as deep as 300 m); they require water temperatures between 23 ЊC and 29 ЊC, and are thus found principally in tropical and subtropical areas, notably in the Indo-Pacific Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea (Fig.

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Island Biogeography Ecology, evolution, and conservation by Robert J. Whittaker


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