Peter Arcese – författare

This book explores the factors affecting the survival of small populations. As the human impact on Earth expands, populations of many wild species are being squeezed into smaller and smaller habitats. As a consequence, they face an increasing threat of extinction. National and international conservation groups rush to add these populations, species and sub-species to their existing endangered and threatened lists. In nations with strong conservation laws, listing often triggers elaborate plans to rescue declining populations and restore their habitats. The authors review these theoretical ideas, the existing data, and explore the question: how well do small and isolated populations actually perform? Their case study group is the song sparrows of Mandarte Island, British Columbia. This population is small enough and isolated enough so that all individuals can be uniquely marked and their survival and reproduction monitored over many generations. This is one of the strongest long-term ecological studies of a contained vertebrate population, now in its 31st year.

The aim of this text is to provide an up-to-date understanding of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem in East Africa, home to one of the largest and most diverse populations of animals in the world. Building on the groundwork laid by "Serengeti: Dynamics of an Ecosystem", published in 1979 by the University of Chicago Press, this work integrates studies of the ecosystem at every level, from the plants at the bottom of the visible food chain to the many species of herbivores and predators, as well as the system as a whole. Drawing on data from long-term studies, the contributors examine the processes that have produced the Serengeti's biological diversity, with its species-species and species-environment interactions. The book also discusses computer modelling as a tool for exploring these interactions, employing it to test and anticipate the effects of social, political and economic changes on the entire ecosystem and on particular species, with the aim of assisting the development of future conservation and management strategies.