Mark S. Boyce - Böcker

Mammals range in body size from the gigantic blue whale to the tiny Etruscan shrew. Elephants and man may live for nearly one hundred years, while most shrews die before they are three months old. During the past decade, mammalogists and evolutionary biologists have begun to unravel the numerous factors that shape the enormous diversity of mammal life histories. In this volume, leading scientists provide a variety of perspectives on the newest theories in this active field of study.The principle uniting all studies of life history evolution is adaptation by natural selection. The first chapters in the book discuss this topic, offering evolutionary interpretations of geographic variation in mammal life histories, explaining how natural selection operates in fluctuating environments, introducing evolutionary predictions of demographic mathematics, and integrating life histories with behavioral ecology. The next chapters offer functional interpretations of the importance of body size in the life history. Next, several essays explain how developments in quantitative genetics have enabled us to distinguish between genetic and environmental components of variation within and between species. With this as a basis, the chapters that follow draw from principles of natural selection, allometry, and genetics to interpret differences among species of mammals. The book concludes with speculations on various areas where research seems most urgent for the development of a comprehensive understanding of mammal life history evolution. According to the authors, the field is rich with questions, and opportunities abound for both theoretical and empirical research.

In 1872 Congress designated Yellowstone National Park as the world’s first national park; nineteen years later, the land adjacent to Yellowstone became America’s first national forest reserve. Since that time, the entire Yellowstone region has been the scene of major battles over resource management—debates between those who would use the land for extraction of national resources (mining, lumbering, and hunting, for example) and those who believe that wildlife and recreation should dominate land use.  In this book, experts in science, economics, and law discuss key resource management issues in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, using them as a starting point to debate the manner in which humans should interact with the environment of this area. Some authors reflect upon the summer 1988 fires at Yellowstone and review the role and effect of fire in the ecosystem. Others offer opinions on appropriate management of elk and bison, key attractions to Yellowstone since its inception. Still others address the question of whether wolves—now a missing component of the Yellowstone ecosystem—should be restored to the region. A final essay by editors Robert B. Keiter and Mark S. Boyce suggests how ecosystem management principles will affect Greater Yellowstone’s future and how an ecological process management philosophy might be implemented.  This important book, which includes special archival photographs of the Yellowstone area, will be the major source of information on this land for years to come. It is also valuable for all who are interested in how wildlands throughout the world can be preserved in their natural state in the face of accelerating human encroachment. .

Until recently, natural resource management of such commodities as timber and wildlife was driven largely by the desire to exploit these resources. During the past three decades, however, ecologists have warned that this approach to natural resource management could have unforeseen consequences because it ignored how ecosystems function within the landscape. Federal agencies that oversee forest and wildlife resources have begun to implement different schemes of ecosystem management, schemes that vary enormously among agencies. Contributors to this volume—leading experts who are agency personnel as well as researchers—now clarify the key elements of sound ecosystem management and offer prescriptions for implementing them.The authors discuss definitions of ecosystem management, sustainability of ecological systems, landscape ecology, resource management at different scales and in an ecosystem context, new advances in computer technology that facilitate classification schemes for ecosystems, ecosystem restoration, biological diversity, and public concerns. Throughout, the experts agree that management practices must be sustainable: that production of commodities, such amenities as recreation and aesthetics, and biodiversity must not be allowed to decline over time.