Biodiversity
A Beginner's Guide
1st Edition
Published on 1. December 2012
192 pages
978-1-78074-132-1 (ISBN)
Description
Biologist John Spicer shows how closely our future is linked with that of biodiversity while navigating readers through some key problems facing our planet, including mass extinctions, population explosions, habitat destruction, and pollution. Along the way, he provides valuable insight into the impact humans have had upon the earth and its inhabitants, whether efforts such as ecotourism really help, and how scientists and economists calculate the 'value' of biodiversity. Passionately argued, this book is a must for anyone who has an appreciation for nature and wants to understand the real issues at stake in preserving it.
Reviews / Votes
"Prof Spicer spells out the chilling message in a new book -- Biodiversity: A Beginner's Guide -- the findings of which have been backed by respected scientists from the United Nations, Yale University and the Eden Project." * Herald, the * "Will appeal to intelligent non-specialists and may provide the incentive to study the subject in greater depth" * Journal of Biological Education *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
File size
2,09 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-78074-132-1 (9781780741321)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
11/2006
Oneworld Publications
€14.50
Article not available at the moment
Person
John Spicer is Professor in Marine Biology, University of Plymouth. He is co-author of the best-selling textbook Biodiversity: An Introduction, Blackwell Science, 2003
Content
- Cover
- Contents
- Preface
- Chapter 1 The wood among which the trees are found
- Biodiversity - what was that again?
- Life - in abundance
- Directions
- Chapter 2 All creatures that on earth do dwell
- The big picture
- The ball in my garden
- What is a species?
- How many living species are there ... and what are they?
- New species
- A place for everything and everything in its place
- Designs on life
- Chapter 3 Where on earth is biodiversity?
- The university of plymouth marine field course
- More is more
- Those who go down to the sea in ships ...
- Hotspots: a tale of two definitions
- Big-scale biodiversity: biogeographical and political regions
- Latitude for life?
- Lessons from the tops of scottish mountains
- Out of your depth
- Staying close to home
- Congruence: the holy grail of biodiversity?
- Chapter 4 Diversity, extinction and deep time
- One every twenty minutes?
- A year in the life of biodiversity
- Precambrian - before life?
- 'Explosive' cambrian
- Post-cambrian: tinkering with successful designs?
- Beginnings of evolution - the origin of species
- End of evolution - extinction
- Chapter 5 Crisis? what crisis?
- Threatening behaviour
- Living beyond our means
- Habitat loss and degradation
- Danger and opportunity?
- Introduced species
- The domino effect - extinction cascades
- Some light relief - complete elimination of biodiversity by extraterrestrial means
- Once upon a time there were two people ... now look how many there are
- It's the poor who do the suffering
- Chapter 6 No such thing as a free lunch
- '... And for everything else there's mastercard'
- Costing a small planet
- Use now, pay when?
- How biosphere 1 works - as one
- How 'bits' of biosphere 1 work
- Build your own biosphere - not so silent running
- Valuable for what, and to whom?
- Full-on philosophers and laid-back religion?
- To conclude
- Chapter 7 Leaving the world as you would like to find it
- Saving private land
- Antecedents
- Oh rio
- Responses to rio
- Rio + 10
- Millennium assessment
- No room for the individual?
- Epilogue
- Chapter 8 The ring of living beauty
- Further reading and website references
- Appendix Classification of the groups of organisms referred to in this book
