Richard S. Ostfeld - Böcker

Conservation medicine focuses on the cross-over between ecosystem, animal and human health. Conservation biology emerged as a "crisis" discipline in the 1980s at the interface between ecology, environmental policy and management; and work in the biomedical and veterinary sciences is now being folded into conservation biology, to explore the connections between animal and human health. It traces the environmental sources of pathogens and pollutants in order to develop a rounded, interdisciplinary understanding of the ecological causes of changes in human and animal health, and the consequences of diseases to populations and ecological communities.

The conservation and management of wild natural resources stand at a junction. Currently conservation policy is shifting away from the preservation of single endangered species toward conservation and management of the interactive networks and large-scale ecosystems on which species depend. This text offers a scientific framework for this new approach, providing a solid basis for future research and the development of stronger links between ecology and public policy. Leaders in the field evaluate the role of theory, including both familiar and novel types of models, indicating how these tools can be employed over the range of scales and processes that conservation must now address. The book also contains diverse practical examples and case studies of how the new thinking in ecology, and the new partnership required for more successful conservation can work and be Improved. Examples span from freshwater to arid, and from subtropical to boreal. In addition, this highly integrated text provides links between ecology and policy and between ecology and management.

News headlines are forever reporting diseases that take huge tolls on humans, wildlife, domestic animals, and both cultivated and native plants worldwide. These diseases can also completely transform the ecosystems that feed us and provide us with other critical benefits, from flood control to water purification. And yet diseases sometimes serve to maintain the structure and function of the ecosystems on which humans depend. Gathering thirteen essays by forty leading experts who convened at the Cary Conference at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in 2005, this book develops an integrated framework for understanding where these diseases come from, what ecological factors influence their impacts, and how they in turn influence ecosystem dynamics. It marks the first comprehensive and in-depth exploration of the rich and complex linkages between ecology and disease, and provides conceptual underpinnings to understand and ameliorate epidemics. It also sheds light on the roles that diseases play in ecosystems, bringing vital new insights to landscape management issues in particular.While the ecological context is a key piece of the puzzle, effective control and understanding of diseases requires the interaction of professionals in medicine, epidemiology, veterinary medicine, forestry, agriculture, and ecology. The essential resource on the subject, Infectious Disease Ecology seeks to bridge these fields with an ecological approach that focuses on systems thinking and complex interactions.

From its inception, the U.S. Department of the Interior has been charged with a conflicting mission. One set of statutes demands that the department must develop America's lands, that it get our trees, water, oil, and minerals out into the marketplace. Yet an opposing set of laws orders us to conserve these same resources, to preserve them for the long term and to consider the noncommodity values of our public landscape. That dichotomy, between rapid exploitation and long-term protection, demands what I see as the most significant policy departure of my tenure in office: the use of science-interdisciplinary science-as the primary basis for land management decisions. For more than a century, that has not been the case. Instead, we have managed this dichotomy by compartmentalizing the American landscape. Congress and my predecessors handled resource conflicts by drawing enclosures: "We'll create a national park here," they said, "and we'll put a wildlife refuge over there." Simple enough, as far as protection goes. And outside those protected areas, the message was equally simplistic: "Y'all come and get it. Have at it." The nature and the pace of the resource extraction was not at issue; if you could find it, it was yours.

An important collection of review articles on the top science and developments in the fields of ecology and conservation biology. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/nyas.ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member

This volume features in-depth reviews of the major issues and emerging topics in ecology and conservation biology. The contributors are among the top researchers in the field. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/nyas.ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member.

As anticipated for the series, this year’s volume contains a diverse collection of timely reviews on current problems in conservation biology and their scientific, policy, and management implications. The collection ranges from a careful review of the human impacts on native bee populations to examinations of excess nitrogen deposition in native plant communities, and of mercury in stream ecosystems. Other papers look prospectively at future human effects on the environment, including examining the potential advantages of biofuel production and describing a prognosis for tropical forests. Others examine the health and economic implications of environmental change, including reviews of invasive species and international trade, of emerging viruses, and of changing immune functions. The aim of the series is to put scholarly, authoritative reviews in the hands of a broad range of scientists, as well as those who manage the environment. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/nyas.ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member.

As in past installments of "The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology" series, this year’s volume contains a diverse collection of timely reviews in conservation biology and scientific, policy, and management implications, including reviews in the following areas: ecosystem services provided by bats; emerging indirect and long-term road salt effects on ecosystems; environmental ethics and human ecology; environmental impacts of mountaintop mining valley fill operations for aquatic ecosystems of the Central Appalachians; urban biodiversity, patterns and mechanisms; anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems in Antarctica; understanding the role of co-factors in driving amphibian losses; tropical forest ecosystems and unsustainable hunting. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please click here.ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member.

This fifth installment of The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology continues this series’ outstanding reviews in diverse topics in ecology and conservation science and policy.  Included are papers on protection of orangutans; environmental governmentality, economic corporations, and ecological ethics; impact of Nature on experience and cognitive and mental health; consequences of vulture population declines worldwide; ecology and management of white-tailed deer; controlling the spread of invasive plants; reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation; the boreal forest ecosystem; effects of organic farming on biodiversity and ecosystems; ecology of anopheles mosquitoes; ecology and conservation biology of avian malaria; and climate change and ecology of Artic vertebrates. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit http://ordering.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/subs.asp?ref=1749-6632&doi=10.1111/(ISSN)1749-6632.ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member.