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1445 books match the query 'Life Sciences' and 121 start with f

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

H. J. Beentje

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2005

Being a descriptive account of the flowering plants and ferns native and naturalised in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, together with information on exotic ornamental and crop plants.

Prepared at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in co-operation with the East African Herbarium, the National Herbarium of Tanzania, and the Herbaria of Makerere University and Dar es Salaam University.

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Commelinaceae

Edited by Henk Beentje

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2012

The Flora of Tropical East Africa is a descriptive, extensively illustrated account of the flowering plants and ferns native and naturalized in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, together with information on exotic ornamental and crop plants. At least one species of each genus is illustrated, and the bibliography and synonymy are sufficiently detailed to explain the nomenclature and taxonomic circumscriptions within a broad regional context. This part covers the Commelinaceae family.

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Compositae (Part 3)

H. J. Beentje

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2005

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Cyatheaceae

H. J. Beentje

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2005

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Cyperaceae

Edited by H. J. Beentje and S. A. Ghazanfar

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2010

The Flora of Tropical East Africa is a descriptive, extensively illustrated account of the flowering plants and ferns native and naturalized in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, together with information on exotic ornamental and crop plants. At least one species of each genus is illustrated with a fully annotated, and the bibliography and synonymy are sufficiently detailed to explain the nomenclature and taxonomic circumscriptions within a broad regional context.
This part is devoted to the substantial family of Cyperaceae - or sedges.

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Dracaenaceae

Edited by H.J. Beentje and S.A. Ghazanfar

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2007

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Hymenophyllaceae

H. J. Beentje and S. A. Ghazanfar

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2000

A descriptive account of the flowering plants and ferns native and naturalised in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, together with information on exotic ornamental and crop plants. Prepared at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in co-operation with the East African Herbarium, the National Herbarium of Tanzania, and the Herbaria of Makerere University and Dar es Salaam University.

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Lamiaceae (Labiatae)

Edited by H.J. Beentje and S.A. Ghazanfar

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2010

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Malvaceae

Edited by H.J. Beentje and S.A. Ghazanfar

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2010

A descriptive account of the flowering plants and ferns native and naturalised in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, together with information on exotic ornamental and crop plants. At least one species in each genus is illustrated, and the bibliography and synonymy are sufficiently detailed to explain nomenclature and taxonomic circumscriptions within a broad regional context. The Flora is a part work published in paperback fascicles.
The 'Malvaceae' includes the genera Pavonia, Hibiscus and Abutilon.

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Ochnaceae

H. J. Beentje

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2000

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Scrophulariaceae

H. J. Beentje

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2008

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Flora of Tropical East Africa

Solanaceae

Edited by Henk J. Beentje

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2012

The Flora of Tropical East Africa is a descriptive, extensively illustrated account of the flowering plants and ferns native and naturalized in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, together with information on exotic ornamental and crop plants. At least one species of each genus is illustrated, and the bibliography and synonymy are sufficiently detailed to explain the nomenclature and taxonomic circumscriptions within a broad regional context. This part of the series is devoted to the Solanaceae or nightshade family, which includes both important agricultural crops as well as a number of toxic plants.

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Flora of the Gran Desierto and Río Colorado Delta

Richard Stephen Felger

University of Arizona Press, 2001

From the Pinacate lava fields and expansive dunes to the shores of the Gulf of California, the Gran Desierto is one of the hottest and driest places in the Western Hemisphere. Yet this region in the state of Sonora in northwestern Mexico embraces a remarkable number of habitats with a fascinating and surprisingly rich flora. This is the heart of the Sonoran Desert, still in a largely primordial state, in juxtaposition with the ravished wetlands of the once great Río Colorado. Flora of the Gran Desierto is the culmination of more than twenty-five years of research in this magnificent desert and delta by botanist Richard Felger. This comprehensive floristic study of more than 565 species of vascular plants features original diagnostic descriptions and innovative identification keys to the families, genera, and species. Particular attention has been devoted to taxa that are poorly known. Even weeds and their histories are treated in detail. Hundreds of illustrations by such eminent botanical artists as Lucretia Brezeale Hamilton, Matt Johnson, and Bobbi Angell will aid in the identification of plants.

Common names of plants are given in English, Spanish, and O'odham. While emphasizing scientific accuracy, the book is written in an accessible style. Felger's observations and knowledge of plant ecology, geographic distribution, evolution, ethnobotany, plant variation and special adaptations, and the history of the region provides botanists, naturalists, ecologists, conservationists, and anyone else celebrating the desert with readable, interesting, and important information. With two of Mexico's newest biosphere reserves—the Pinacate and the Upper Gulf of California—this region is a keystone for desert conservation efforts. Its location linking vast preserves to the north makes this book especially useful for anyone interested in borderland studies and the Sonoran Desert. Flora of the Gran Desierto represents a most creative, definitive, and enthusiastic treatment of Sonoran Desert plant life and is highly relevant to ecological restoration in deserts and wetlands in arid places worldwide.

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Flora of the Guianas Series A

Meliaceae

Edited by Sylvia Mota de Oliveira

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2016

A critical, illustrated look at the flora of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, designed to treat phanerogams as well as cryptogams of the area. This edition covers the Meliaceae family, and provides plant descriptions, distribution, and taxonomic keys.

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Flora of the Guianas Series A

Phanerogams Fascicle 27: 71. Cyrillaceae, 79. Theophrastaceae, 86. Habdodendraceae, 90. Proteaceae, 100. Combretaceae, 113. Dichapetalaceae, 167. Limnocharitaceae, 168. Alismataceae

Edited by M.J. Jansen-Jacobs

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2009

Descriptions and illustrations of species in the following families:-

71. Cyrillaceae, 79. Theophrastaceae, 86. Habdodendraceae, 90. Proteaceae, 100. Combretaceae, 113. Dichapetalaceae 167. Limnochoaritaceae, 168. Alismataceae

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Flora of the Guianas Series A

Phanerogams Fascicle 28: Leguminosae Subfamily 87. Mimosoideae.

Edited by M. J. Jansen-Jacobs

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2011

A critical, illustrated Flora of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, designed to treat phanerogams as well as cryptogams of the area. Publication takes place in fascicles, each treating a family or group of related families. Treatments provide fundamental and applied information, covering, when possible, wood anatomy, chemical analysis, economic uses, vernacular names and data on endangered species.

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Flora of the Guianas Series C

Bryophytes Fascicle 2

Edited by M. J. Jansen-Jacobs

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2011

A critical, illustrated Flora of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, designed to treat phanerogams as well as cryptogams of the area. Each fascicle treats a family or group of related families, providing fundamental and applied information, covering, where relevant, wood anatomy, chemical analysis, economic uses, vernacular names and data on endangered species.

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Flora of the Guianas Series E (Fungi and Lichens)

Cladoniaceae

Edited by Sylvia Mota de Oliveira

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2014

A critical, illustrated look at the flora of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, designed to treat phanerogams as well as cryptogams of the area. This edition covers the Cladoniaceae family, and provides plant descriptions, distribution, and taxonomic keys.

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Flora of the Guianas. Series A

Phanerogams Fascicle 23

M. J. Jansen-Jacobs

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2006

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Flora of the Guianas. Series A

Phanerogams Fascicle 24

M. J. Jansen-Jacobs

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2007

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Flora of the Guianas. Series A

Phanerogams Fascicle 25

M. J. Jansen-Jacobs

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2007

Covers the mistletoe families:-

105a. Eremolepidaceae
105b. Loranthaceae
106. Viscaceae

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Flora of the Guianas. Series A

Phanerogams Fascicle 26

Edited by M.J. Jansen-Jacobs

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2008

A contribution to the Flora of the Guianas series from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

A critical, illustrated Flora of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, designed to treat phanerogams as well as cryptogams of the area.

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Flora of the Northeast

A Manual of the Vascular Flora of New England and Adjacent New York

Dennis W. Magee

University of Massachusetts Press, 2007

Designed as both a reference work and a year-round field manual, this volume contains more than 2,400 range maps and 995 line drawings, designed to clarify descriptions used in the keys. For botanists, naturalists, and students interested in an up-to-date treatment of the vascular flora of greater New England, it has proved to be an invaluable resource. The geographic scope of the work extends from the Canadian border south through Long Island and west to the Hudson River.

The "General Keys" section contains fourteen keys that include such groups as aquatic plants, vines, and woody plants in winter condition. For both woody and herbaceous families, the keys cover flowering as well as fruiting conditions and rely heavily on the use of vegetative features to extend the utility of the book beyond the reproductive period.The "Descriptive Flora" section includes keys to all of the genera and species, descriptions of the families and genera, and accounts of the individual species. The latter incorporates information on wetland site index, rare status, wildlife food value, food and medicinal value for humans, and poisonous or hallucinogenic properties.

This revised edition includes an updating of plant scientific names that changed since the first edition and an alphabetized list of plant families with page numbers on the inside front cover for easy reference. Additional resources will soon be available on the publisher's website, including a multiple-entry identification guide, hundreds of accompanying photographic images of genera, an illustrated glossary, and page reference numbers to genus descriptions in the manual. Presenting a wealth of scientifically accurate information in a precise and clear format, this volume serves as a reference work, as a textbook for classes in plant identification, and as a field manual.

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Flore Générique des Arbres de Madagascar

George E. Schatz

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2001

This is a practical field manual for the identification of the 500 genera of native and naturalized Malagasy trees. Identification keys emphasise vegetative and gross morphological features. All genera are provided with full descriptions, distribution information, key characteristics, up-to-date taxonomic references and over 3,000 Malagasy vernacular names and almost all are illustrated. The French-language edition.

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Florida

A Fire Survey

Stephen J. Pyne

University of Arizona Press, 2016

In Florida, fire season is plural, and it is most often a verb. Something can always burn. Fires burn longleaf, slash, and sand pine. They burn wiregrass, sawgrass, and palmetto. The lush growth, the dry winters, the widely cast sparks—Florida is built to burn.

In this important new collection of essays on the region, Stephen J. Pyne colorfully explores the ways the region has approached fire management. Florida has long resisted national models of fire suppression in favor of prescribed burning, for which it has ideal environmental conditions and a robust culture. Out of this heritage the fire community has created institutions to match. The Tallahassee region became the ignition point for the national fire revolution of the 1960s. Today, it remains the Silicon Valley of prescription burning. How and why this happened is the topic of a fire reconnaissance that begins in the panhandle and follows Floridian fire south to the Everglades.

Florida is the first book in a multivolume series describing the nation’s fire scene region by region. The volumes in To the Last Smoke will also cover California, the Northern Rockies, the Great Plains, the Southwest, and several other critical fire regions. The series serves as an important punctuation point to Pyne’s fifty-year career with wildland fire—both as a firefighter and a fire scholar. These unique surveys of regional pyrogeography are Pyne’s way of “keeping with it to the end,” encompassing the directive from his rookie season to stay with every fire “to the last smoke.”

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Florula of Mucuge

R. M. Harley and N. A. Simmons

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1986

A descriptive checklist of the plants of Chapada Diamantina region in the Brazilian state of Bahia, based on collections made by Kew expeditions 1974-80.

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Flower Day

A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Floral Lives

Sandra Knapp

University of Chicago Press, 2025

An illustrated hourly guide that spotlights twenty-four flowers as they attract pollinators, resist predators, and survive on our changing planet.

Is it 4 AM or chicory o’clock? In this short book, botanist and award-winning author Sandra Knapp walks us through a day in a global garden. Each chapter of Flower Day introduces a single flower during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four different species from around the world.

Beginning at midnight in the Americas, we spot the long tubular flowers of the moonflower, Ipomoea alba; they attract a frenzy of hawk moths before the dawn arrives and the flowers wither and collapse. As day breaks, dandelions and chicory open their heads—actually made up of many individual flowers tightly packed together—and flies and bees visit to get the energy they need to lay eggs and raise their young. Later, at eight o’clock in the morning, the sun rises over the watery Amazon basin, and we meet the giant waterlily, slowly turning from white to pink and purple. Trapped inside are the beetles who feasted on the flowers during the night. That evening, at seven o’clock, we travel to the Caribbean to smell night-blooming jessamine’s powerful—some may say nauseating—sweet scent. But this member of the nightshade family isn’t just a thing of beauty—it has a reputation as both a poison and invasive species, crowding out endangered native trees.

For each hour in our flower day, celebrated artist Katie Scott has depicted these scenes with gorgeous pen-and-ink illustrations. Working closely together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Knapp and Scott have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for amateur botanists, gardeners, and anyone who wants to stop and appreciate the flowers.

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Flowering Plants of Seychelles

S. A. Robertson

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1989

A comprehensive,illustrated checklist of the islands' flora. Some 1,140 species are covered, each with brief taxonomic notes, and record of localities where known.

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Flowering Plants

Asteraceae, Part 1

Robert H. Mohlenbrock

Southern Illinois University Press, 2015

This, the first of three volumes on the aster family planned for the Illustrated Flora of Illinois series, recognizes 388 species in 119 genera, as well as 20 hybrids and 73 lesser taxa. In Asteraceae, Part 1, author Robert Mohlenbrock presents new and historic information in a clear and easy-to-read style. The volume provides an easy-to-use key to the genera and species and a complete description and nomenclatural and habitat notes for each plant, including its usefulness, if applicable. New nomenclatural combinations are shown for several species. The precise illustrations and detailed information allow for the identification of some of the most difficult to identify plants in the state—goldenrods, asters, artemisias, and fleabanes, among others. Includes 128 original illustrations by Paul Nelson.

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Flowering Plants

Asteraceae, Part 2

Robert H. Mohlenbrock

Southern Illinois University Press, 2019

In this second volume on the aster family, botanist Robert H. Mohlenbrock recognizes 133 species in 42 genera, as well as 7 hybrids and 29 lesser taxa. Flowering Plants: Asteraceae, Part 2 provides an easy-to-use key to the genera and species and a complete description and nomenclatural and habitat notes for each plant, including its usefulness, if applicable. The book details the most important features of the species and includes common, locally used names. Synonyms that have been applied to species and lesser taxa in Illinois are given for each species.

In addition, Mohlenbrock has identified the overall range for each species in Illinois, compiled from various sources, including examinations of herbarium material and Mohlenbrock’s own field studies. The range is given from the northeastern to the northwestern extremities, south to the southwestern limit, and then eastward to the southeastern limit.

As important to amateurs interested in wildflower identification as to botanists and land planners, this second volume of Mohlenbrock’s Asteraceae is an essential addition to the esteemed Illustrated Flora of Illinois series.

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Flowering Plants

Asteraceae, Part 3

Robert H. Mohlenbrock

Southern Illinois University Press, 2017

Flowering Plants: Asteraceae, Part 3 is the third and final volume in botanist Robert H. Mohlenbrock’s comprehensive sequence of books on the aster family in Illinois. In this volume, Mohlenbrock identifies 128 species in 49 genera with 11 hybrids and 57 lesser taxa. He provides an easy-to-use key to the genera and species and a complete description and nomenclatural and habitat notes for each plant, including its uses, if applicable. The book details the most important features of the species and includes common, locally used names. Synonyms that have been applied to species and lesser taxa in Illinois are given under each species.

In addition, Mohlenbrock has identified the overall range for each species in Illinois, compiled from various sources, including examinations of herbarium material and Mohlenbrock’s own field studies. The overall range for each species is given from the northeastern to the northwestern extremities, south to the southwestern limit, then eastward to the southeastern limit.

As important to amateurs interested in wildflower identification as to professional botanists and land planners, this last volume of Mohlenbrock’s Asteraceae is an essential addition to the esteemed Illustrated Flora of Illinois series.

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Flowering Plants

Basswoods to Spurges

Robert H. Mohlenbrock

Southern Illinois University Press, 1982

This is the fourth volume in The Illustrated Flora of Illinois devoted to dicotyledons, or dicot plants. Dicots are the greatest group of flowering plants, exceeding the monocotyledons, or monocots. Dicots produce a pair of seed leaves during germination while monocots produce only a single seed leaf.

This volume contains four orders and ten families of dicots. The orders included in this volume are Malvales, Urticales, Rhamnales, and Euphorbiales. Within the Malvales are the families Tiliaceae, Sterculiaceae, and Malvaceae. The families Ulmaceae, Moraceae, and Urticaceae comprise the Urticales. Rhamnaceae and Elaeagnaceae make up the Rhamnales. The Euphorbiales include only the Thymelaeceae and the Euphorbiaceae.

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Flowering Plants

Lilies to Orchids

Robert H. Mohlenbrock

Southern Illinois University Press, 1970

A continuation of “The Illustrated Flora of Illinois” series, this volume features Illinois flowering plants. This series is designed to provide a working reference for the identification and classification of all the plant forms found in the state. This series is the first of its kind, as no other study of this sort has been undertaken in any other state, and as such, is an unparalleled contribution to its field.

In his introduction to this volume, Mr. Mohlenbrock discusses some of the terms and procedures used in the identification and classification of the plants. He outlines the life histories and morphologies of some of the representative monocots, and also illustrates some of their habits and frequencies in Illinois. Since these volumes are meant to be used by the amateur as well as the professional botanist, the methods and terms used in the text are explained. The directions for the use of the various identification keys are given so that even the novice plant lover will be able to identify the species encountered. For the uninitiated, a glossary is provided which gives definitions for all terms that might be unfamiliar.

All necessary aids to identification are included in the text itself. The identification keys make it initially possible to classify the plants according to order, family, genus and finally, species and the identifying characteristics of each descending class are given in detail. The morphology of each species is outlined, along with data on frequency of occurrence, related soil and climate conditions and history of past collections, and history of past collections. An illustration showing the more important features of the species in detail is included with the description, as well as a map indicating its geographical locations in Illinois.

This book will be invaluable to students, teachers and professionals; particularly those who are interested in observing the plants in their natural habitat. Those who use it will find it possible to obtain a broad view of changing plant forms as they relate to soil and climate variations throughout the state. And it will provide a delightful diversion for all who enjoy viewing beautiful forms in nature. A walk through the forest will become an opportunity for discovery and appreciation.

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Flowering Plants

Nightshades to Mistletoe

Robert H. Mohlenbrock

Southern Illinois University Press, 1990

This sixth volume of dicots contains three orders and eight families. The orders included are Solanales, Campanulales, and Santalales. Within the Solanales are the families Solanaceae, Convolvulaceae, Cuscutaceae, and Polemoniaceae. The Campanulales contain only the family Campanulaceae. The Santalales include the families Celastraceae, Santalaceae, and Viscaceae. As with each volume in this series Mohlenbrock includes a complete plant description, illustrations showing diagnostic features, distribution maps, and ecological notes.

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Flowering Plants

Pokeweeds, Four-o'clocks, Carpetweeds, Cacti, Purslanes, Goosefoots, Pigweeds, and Pinks

Robert H. Mohlenbrock

Southern Illinois University Press, 2001

Robert H. Mohlenbrock provides a definitive account of the pokeweed, four-o'clock, carpetweed, cactus, purslane, goosefoot, pigweed, and pink families in Illinois.

Flowering Plants: Pokeweeds, Four-o’clocks, Carpetweeds, Cacti, Purslanes, Goosefoots, Pigweeds, and Pinks is the fifteenth volume of the Illustrated Flora of Illinois series and the ninth devoted to dicots, or plants that have two seed-leaves, or cotyledons, upon germination. Each of the 141 plants is beautifully illustrated by Paul W. Nelson.

Nelson shows the full habitat of the plant and close-ups of various vegetative and reproductive structures that are crucial for the identification of individual species. Each illustration includes detailed drawings of the flowers, fruits, and seeds of the plant covered. Mohlenbrock provides a complete description of each species as well as a discussion of the nomenclature and habitats, and his fifty-three years of experience enable him to present little-known diagnostic features for many species. Range maps show the county distribution of each species in Illinois. Mohlenbrock includes a statement giving the overall range of each species in the United States as well as a detailed key for the identification of the species.

Flowering Plants contains many plants whose obscure flower parts make them exceedingly difficult to identify. The close-up illustrations of these parts will aid the user of the book immensely in identification of the species. Included are several species previously unknown in Illinois.

New illustrations, which include detailed drawings of the flowers, fruits, and seeds are presented for each species covered in this book. Mohlenbrock’s fifty-three years of experience enable him to present little-known diagnostic features for many species.

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Flowering Plants

Smartweeds to Hazelnuts

Robert H. Mohlenbrock and Paul M. Thomson Jr.

Southern Illinois University Press, 2009

Since the publication of the first edition of Smartweeds to Hazelnuts in 1987, thirteen additional species and one hybrid have been discovered in Illinois. In addition, numerous nomenclatural changes have occurred for plants already known.

This second edition updates the status of the Polygonaceae, Hamamelidaceae, Platanaceae, Fagaceae, Betulaceae, and Corylaceae in Illinois. Each of the newly discovered species has been added and is fully illustrated. Updated nomenclature as well as Illinois distributional data are included for each species. In addition to the fourteen new plant illustrations, the appendix contains new information on the descriptions and the geographical locations of plants in the first edition, and revised identification keys.

Robert H. Mohlenbrock and Paul M. Thomson Jr. have included a complete description, illustrations showing diagnostic features, distribution maps, and ecological notes for each plant included in this volume.

This new edition will be invaluable to scholars of botany as well as laypersons interested in observing plants in their natural habitat.

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Flowering Plants

Willows to Mustards

Robert H. Mohlenbrock

Southern Illinois University Press, 1980

This eighth volume in the comprehensive Illustrated Flora of Illinois series is the seventh volume devoted to flowering plants (the eighth volume is devoted to ferns) and the second treating dicotyledons, which include such well-known plants as roses, peas, mustards, mints, nightshades, milkweeds, and asters. The previous volume on dicots, Flowering Plants: Hollies to Loasas, was published in 1978.

In the present volume, Mohlenbrock includes three orders of vascular plants encompassing five families. The orders are Salicales and Tamaricales, of the Salicaceae and Tamaricaceae families, and Capparidales, of the Capparidaceae, Resedaceae, and Brassicaceae families. In all, 44 genera and 117species are treated in this volume, each species illustrated in detail.

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Food Hoarding in Animals

Stephen B. Vander Wall

University of Chicago Press, 1990

In this first comprehensive synthesis of the literature on food hoarding in animals, Stephen B. Vander Wall discusses how animals store food, how they use food and how this use affects individual fitness, why and how food hoarding evolved, how cached food is lost, mechanisms for protecting and recovering cached food, physiological and behavioral factors that influence hoarding, and the impact that hoarding animals have on plant populations and plant dispersal. He then provides detailed coverage of hoarding behavior across taxa—mammals, birds, and arthropods—to address issues in evolution, ecology, and behavior.

Drawings, photographs, and appendixes document complex and intrinsically interesting food-hoarding behaviors, and the bibliography of nearly 1,500 sources is itself an invaluable and unique reference.

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Food Systems in an Unequal World

Pesticides, Vegetables, and Agrarian Capitalism in Costa Rica

Ryan E. Galt

University of Arizona Press, 2014

Pesticides, a short-term aid for farmers, can often be harmful, undermining the long-term health of agriculture, ecosystems, and people. The United States and other industrialized countries import food from Costa Rica and other regions. To safeguard the public health, importers now regulate the level and types of pesticides used in the exporters’ food production, which creates “regulatory risk” for the export farmers. Although farmers respond to export regulations by trying to avoid illegal pesticide residues, the food produced for their domestic market lacks similar regulation, creating a double standard of pesticide use.

Food Systems in an Unequal World examines the agrochemical-dependent agriculture of Costa Rica and how its uneven regulation in export versus domestic markets affects Costa Rican vegetable farmers. Examining pesticide-dependent vegetable production within two food systems, the author shows that pesticide use is shaped by three main forces: agrarian capitalism, the governance of food systems throughout the commodity chain, and ecological dynamics driving local food production. Those processes produce unequal outcomes that disadvantage less powerful producers who have more limited choices than larger farmers, who usually have access to better growing environments and thereby can reduce pesticide use and production costs.

Despite the rise of alternative food networks, Galt says, persistent problems remain in the conventional food system, including widespread and intensive pesticide use. Facing domestic price squeezes, vegetable farmers in Costa Rica are more likely to supply the national market with produce containing residues of highly toxic pesticides, while using less toxic pesticides on exported vegetables. In seeking solutions, Galt argues for improved governance and research into alternative pest control but emphasizes that the process must be rooted in farmers’ economic well-being.

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Food Webs

Stuart L. Pimm

University of Chicago Press, 2002

Food webs are diagrams depicting which species interact or in other words, who eats whom. An understanding of the structure and function of food webs is crucial for any study of how an ecosystem works, including attempts to predict which communities might be more vulnerable to disturbance and therefore in more immediate need of conservation.

Although it was first published twenty years ago, Stuart Pimm's Food Webs remains the clearest introduction to the study of food webs. Reviewing various hypotheses in the light of theoretical and empirical evidence, Pimm shows that even the most complex food webs follow certain patterns and that those patterns are shaped by a limited number of biological processes, such as population dynamics and energy flow. Pimm provides a variety of mathematical tools for unravelling these patterns and processes, and demonstrates their application through concrete examples. For this edition, he has written a new foreword covering recent developments in the study of food webs and demonstrates their continuing importance to conservation biology.

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Food Webs at the Landscape Level

Edited by Gary A. Polis, Mary E. Power, and Gary R. Huxel

University of Chicago Press, 2004

Scientists rely on food webs—complex networks that trace the flow of nutrients and energy between species and through ecosystems—to understand the infrastructure of ecological communities.

But given the complexities of food webs—think of following the flow of nutrients through the microbes, fungi, roots, worms, ants, and birds that pass over or through a single cubic meter of prairie soil—it's not difficult to see why most experiments on food-web dynamics focus on small, local habitats. Yet as this book convincingly shows, important insights come when scientists expand the temporal and spatial scope of their research to look at the ways energy, organisms, nutrients, and pollutants flow not just at the local level, but across whole landscapes—between and among food webs in a wide variety of habitats.

Paying special attention to the fertile boundaries between terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, Food Webs at the Landscape Level not only shows what this new methodology means for ecology, conservation, and agriculture but also serves as a fitting tribute to Gary Polis and his major contributions to the field.

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For the Birds

Protecting Wildlife through the Naturalist Gaze

Elizabeth Cherry

Rutgers University Press, 2019

2020 Award for Distinguished Book from the Animals & Society Section of the American Sociological Association

One in five people in the United States is a birdwatcher, yet the popular understanding of birders reduces them to comical stereotypes, obsessives who only have eyes for their favorite rare species. In real life, however, birders are paying equally close attention to the world around them, observing the devastating effects of climate change and mass extinction, while discovering small pockets of biodiversity in unexpected places.

For the Birds offers readers a glimpse behind the binoculars and reveals birders to be important allies in the larger environmental conservation movement. With a wealth of data from in-depth interviews and over three years of observing birders in the field, environmental sociologist Elizabeth Cherry argues that birders learn to watch wildlife in ways that make an invaluable contribution to contemporary conservation efforts. She investigates how birders develop a “naturalist gaze” that enables them to understand the shared ecosystem that intertwines humans and wild animals, an appreciation that motivates them to participate in citizen science projects and wildlife conservation.

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For the Love of Rivers

A Scientist's Journey

Kurt D. Fausch

Oregon State University Press, 2015

Rivers and streams supply our water and capture our imaginations. We seek the more pristine ones to fish or paddle, to hike along or simply sit and watch. But what is it we are seeing? What is essential about streams and rivers for us as humans?

In For the Love of Rivers, stream ecologist Kurt Fausch draws readers across the reflective surface of streams to view and ponder what is beneath, and how they work. While celebrating their beauty and mystery, he uses his many years of experience as a field biologist to explain the underlying science connecting these aquatic ecosystems to their streamside forests and the organisms found there—including humans.

For the Love of Rivers introduces readers to the life and work of Shigeru Nakano, a pioneering river ecologist who inspired other scientists around the world with his innovative research on stream-forest connections. Fausch takes readers along as he journeys to Japan, where he awakens to an unfamiliar culture, to Nakano, and his research.

Nakano’s life was abruptly ended in a tragic field accident, and his death was deeply mourned. Fausch joins Japanese and American colleagues to continue Nakano’s research legacy, learn everything they can about the effects that humans have on rivers, fish, and their intricate links with riparian zones, and share this knowledge with others.

More than a book about stream ecology, For the Love of Rivers is a celebration of the interconnectedness of life. It is an authoritative and accessible look at the science of rivers and streams, but it also ponders the larger questions of why rivers are important to humans, why it is in our nature to want to be near them, and what we can do now to ensure the future of these essential ecosystems.

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Foraging for Survival

Yearling Baboons in Africa

Stuart A. Altmann

University of Chicago Press, 1998

Stuart A. Altmann presents the results of one of the most intensive investigations ever carried out on foraging behavior and its consequences for survival and reproduction.

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Foraging

Behavior and Ecology

Edited by David W. Stephens, Joel S. Brown, and Ronald C. Ydenberg

University of Chicago Press, 2007

Foraging is fundamental to animal survival and reproduction, yet it is much more than a simple matter of finding food; it is a biological imperative. Animals must find and consume resources to succeed, and they make extraordinary efforts to do so. For instance, pythons rarely eat, but when they do, their meals are large—as much as 60 percent larger than their own bodies. The snake’s digestive system is normally dormant, but during digestion metabolic rates can increase fortyfold. A python digesting quietly on the forest floor has the metabolic rate of thoroughbred in a dead heat. This and related foraging processes have broad applications in ecology, cognitive science, anthropology, and conservation biology—and they can be further extrapolated in economics, neurobiology, and computer science.

Foraging is the first comprehensive review of the topic in more than twenty years. A monumental undertaking, this volume brings together twenty-two experts from throughout the field to offer the latest on the mechanics of foraging, modern foraging theory, and foraging ecology. The fourteen essays cover all the relevant issues, including cognition, individual behavior, caching behavior, parental behavior, antipredator behavior, social behavior, population and community ecology, herbivory, and conservation. Considering a wide range of taxa, from birds to mammals to amphibians, Foraging will be the definitive guide to the field.

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Fossil Lake and the Rise of Modern Birds

Snapshots from Early Avian Evolution

Lance Grande, Daniel T Ksepka, and Gerald Mayr

University of Chicago Press, 2027

Lavishly produced with color fossil photographs throughout, the first comprehensive summary of findings at one of the world’s best fossil bird localities, offering profound insight into early avian evolution after the end-of-Cretaceous extinction event.

What is today a high mountain desert in southwestern Wyoming was, 52 million years ago, a magnificent subtropical lake system. Part of the famed Green River Formation, the limestone layers of this region’s Fossil Lake provide an unparalleled record of life in the Early Eocene of North America. Evolutionary biologist Lance Grande has spent much of his career collecting and studying the beautiful and diverse assemblage of fossils from this locality. Since his 2013 book, The Lost World of Fossil Lake, researchers have uncovered many new fossil bird specimens—often stunningly preserved skeletons, sometimes even including feathers—and benefited from significant advances in our understanding of avian evolution. Their findings help to illuminate the early days of bird life on Earth.

In this volume, Grande and his collaborators—paleornithologists Daniel T. Ksepka and Gerald Mayr—explore these birds of Fossil Lake, where various researchers have formally named and described thirty avian species. The authors also present an additional twenty possible new species awaiting further study and formal review, birds that may soon be added to that list. Fossil Lake and the Rise of Modern Birds then places these avian ancestors within the global context of other fossil birds. Like Grande’s previous publications, this comprehensive work features stunning imagery, including nearly two hundred detailed fossil photographs—fifty that have never appeared elsewhere.

Whether you are an ornithologist, paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, or amateur fossil enthusiast interested in the early evolutionary diversification of modern birds, this book is a treasure.

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