the structure and dynamics of geographic ranges oxford series in ecology and evolution

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No species occurs everywhere. Indeed, the majority are absent from most places, and where they do occur they are usually quite rare. Gaston discusses the structure of these distributions - the structure of the geographic ranges of species. Gaston is particularly concerned with the factors that determine the limits to a species' geographic range, how the sizes of those ranges vary, and patterns in that variation. Also considered are the distribution of individuals amongst those sites where a species does occur and what determines that distribution, and some of the practical implications of all these. Both in a pure and applied context, ecologists need a broader perspective on their subject matter than has historically prevailed. This book provides one such perspective. A must have book for any researchers and graduate students studying macroecology, biogeography and conservation biology.

Invasion Genetics: the Baker & Stebbins legacy provides a state-of-the-art treatment of the evolutionary biology of invasive species, whilst also revisiting the historical legacy of one of the most important books in evolutionary biology: The Genetics of Colonizing Species, published in 1965 and edited by Herbert Baker and G. Ledyard Stebbins. This volume covers a range of topics concerned with the evolutionary biology of invasion including: phylogeography and the reconstruction of invasion history; demographic genetics; the role of stochastic forces in the invasion process; the contemporary evolution of local adaptation; the significance of epigenetics and transgenerational plasticity for invasive species; the genomic consequences of colonization; the search for invasion genes; and the comparative biology of invasive species. A wide diversity of invasive organisms are discussed including plants, animals, fungi and microbes.

The Trinidadian guppy represents a uniguely tractable vertebrate system, which has raised key questions in evolutionary ecology and supplied many of the answers. This work discusses this study and incorporates significant new findings and insights.

Provides a timely and wide-ranging overview of the fast expanding field of dispersal ecology, incorporating the very latest research. The causes, mechanisms, and consequences of dispersal at the individual, population, species, and community levels are considered.

Evolutionary biomechanics is the study of evolution through the analysis of biomechanical systems. Its unique advantage is the precision with which physical constraints and performance can be predicted from first principles. Instead of reviewing the entire breadth of the biomechanical literature, a few key examples are explored in depth as vehicles for discussing fundamental concepts, analytical techniques, and evolutionary theory. Each chapter develops a conceptual theme, developing the underlying theory and techniques required for analyses in evolutionary biomechanics. Examples from terrestrial biomechanics, metabolic scaling, and bird flight are used to analyse how physics constrains the design space that natural selection is free to explore, and how adaptive evolution finds solutions to the trade-offs between multiple complex conflicting performance objectives. Evolutionary Biomechanics is suitable for graduate level students and professional researchers in the fields of biomechanics, physiology, evolutionary biology and palaeontology. It will also be of relevance and use to researchers in the physical sciences and engineering.

Fully illustrated and featuring contributions from the world’s leading experts in bat biology, this reference contains everything bat researchers and natural resource managers need to know for the study and conservation of this wide-ranging, ecologically vital, and diverse taxon.

Metapopulation is the ecological term for assemblages of plant and animal species within larger areas of space, with long-term survival of the species depending on a shifting balance between local extinctions and recolonizations in the patchwork of fragmented landscape. Metapopulation theory is of particular importance to conservation biologists attempting to understand the processes of regional extinction - and survival - of species. Metapopulation Ecology presents a comprehensive synthesis of current research in this rapidly expanding area of population biology from an author who is famous for his work on metapopulations. It encompasses the essential theory of metapopulations, describing the main approaches to modelling metapopulation dynamics in highly fragmented landscapes, with an emphasis on spatially realistic models that can be applied to real metapopulations.

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