Preface - Part 2

Digest

Book Features

• website to accompany book: www.blackwellpublishing.com/begon contains:
• artwork
• glossary
• interactive mathematical models
• links to ecology websites
• Authors published Essentials of Ecology to be a shorter textbook for those who will not study ecology again
• 4th edition has been reduced 15% in size
• John Harper, one of the 3 authors, is no longer participating in the 4th edition, he retired
• each chapter contains summary
• Textbook contains marginal notes as signposts that go along with the flow of the textbook and can also be read on their own. They can be used as a check for comprehension of the main section.
• First edition was very large in an attempt to "overcome the opposition of all competing textbooks."
• Ecology is a meeting-ground for: naturalists, experimentalists, field biologists and mathematical modelers. All ecologists should combine all these facets.
• Results from around 800 studies have been newly incorporated into the 4th edition of this texbook. most of which were published since the third edition.
• Different chapters of this book contain different proportions of:
• descriptive natural history
• physiology
• behavior
• laboratory and field experimentation
• field monitoring and censusing
• mathematical modeling

Questions

1. What are the features of this book?
2. What is unique about this book and differentiates it from others?
3. What is the specific take and direction of this book?
4. To whom is this book directed?
5. Does this book use knowledge from ecology to position itself?

Preface - Part 1

Answers

1. Yes 19 years indicates the time that has passed between the first and fourth edition of the textbook.
2. This section is talking about "applied ecology" and not ecology as a whole. Applied ecology has come of age as of date of publication of the 4th edition of the textbook (2006).
3. Ecology is hard because it deals with an enormous variation in genetics and number of species.
4. Ecology is for everyone because every one of us has 'studied' the ecology around him even if on a very basic or superficial level.

Digest

1. A science  for everybody - but not an easy science
1. everyone has been an ecologist, oldest science
2. evolution only makes sense in light of ecology
3. Whitehead's recipe for science: "Seek simplicity, but distrust it."
4. diversity of genetics, species
5. Patterns
6. Ecology is ... population, 3 levels: organisms, interactions among organisms, communities
2. Nineteen years on: applied ecology has come of age
1. the move towards applications (reflected in 3 chapters, one in each part of the book)
2. some things have changed, some have remained fixed
3. the cover has changed to reflect such changes
4. man as perpetrator

Questions

1. Does 19 years indicate start of first edition?
2. Was ecology not "of age" 19 years ago or does the heading mean the textbook itself has matured?
3. Why is ecology hard?
4. Why does the author consider ecology to be a difficult science?