Stephen Spotte - Böcker

The science and common sense behind creating an inexpensive,flourishing marine aquarium Marine Aquarium Keeping is the firstcomplete, step-by-step handbook to bring scientific perspective andinsight to the practical basics of assembling and successfullymaintaining a conventional marine aquarium. While minimizinggadgetry and underscoring a simple, commonsense regimen of looking,seeing, and understanding, author and marine biologist StephenSpotte offers logical, chapter-by-chapter guidance to every facetof the hobby--from choosing equipment and setting up an aquarium,to selecting healthy animals and maintaining a flourishingunderwater environment. Inside, readers will discover:* How to make a new aquarium suitable for sustaining life* How to select healthy animals from species demonstrating goodcaptive survival* The step-by-step basics of routine maintenance* How to easily meet the nutritional requirements of marineanimals* The key to disease prevention* The use of seawater and artificial seawaters* The living subgravel filter* Aquarium decorations as shelter spaces and as aestheticfeatures* The marine aquarium as a living communityAn extensive health and disease section offers detailed,easy-to-follow treatment regimens, several unique to this volume,for a variety of common diseases. Current controversies and popularmyths surrounding aquarium keeping, such as the benefits ofsupplemental light and the superiority of plastic filtrants, arealso examined. A wealth of black-and-white and color photographsthat strikingly depict marine animals in their natural habitatbring key facets of the text to life. Indispensable to the amateuraquarist who appreciates both the beauty and science of thisfascinating pastime, this newest edition of the popular classic isthe complete guide to successful, inexpensive marine aquariumkeeping.

Wolves are charismatic emblems of wilderness. Dogs, which descended from wolves, are models of urbanity. Do free-ranging dogs revert to pack living or are their societies only reminiscent of a wolfish heritage? Focusing on behavioral ecology, this is the first book to assess societies of both gray wolves and domestic dogs living as urban strays and in the feral state. It provides a comprehensive review of wolf genetics, particularly of New World wolves and their mixture of wolf, coyote and dog genomes. Spotte draws on the latest scientific findings across the specialized fields of genetics, sensory biology, reproductive physiology, space use, foraging ecology and socialization. This interdisciplinary approach provides a solid foundation for a startling and original comparison of the social lives of wolves and free-ranging dogs. Supplementary material, including a full glossary of terms, is available online at www.cambridge.org/9781107015197.

Wolves are charismatic emblems of wilderness. Dogs, which descended from wolves, are models of urbanity. Do free-ranging dogs revert to pack living or are their societies only reminiscent of a wolfish heritage? Focusing on behavioral ecology, this is the first book to assess societies of both gray wolves and domestic dogs living as urban strays and in the feral state. It provides a comprehensive review of wolf genetics, particularly of New World wolves and their mixture of wolf, coyote and dog genomes. Spotte draws on the latest scientific findings across the specialized fields of genetics, sensory biology, reproductive physiology, space use, foraging ecology and socialization. This interdisciplinary approach provides a solid foundation for a startling and original comparison of the social lives of wolves and free-ranging dogs. Supplementary material, including a full glossary of terms, is available online at www.cambridge.org/9781107015197.

Feral and stray domestic cats occupy many different habitats. They can resist dehydration for months by relying exclusively on the tissue water of their prey allowing them to colonize remote deserts and other inhospitable places. They thrive and reproduce in humid equatorial rainforests and windswept subantarctic islands. In many areas of the world feral cats have driven some species of birds and mammals to extinction and others to the edge, becoming a huge conservation concern. With the control of feral and stray cats now a top conservation priority, biologists are intensifying efforts to understand cat behaviour, reproductive biology, use of space, intraspecies interaction, dietary requirements, prey preferences, and vulnerability to different management strategies.This book provides the most comprehensive review yet published on the behavior, ecology and management of free-ranging domestic cats, whether they be owned, stray, or feral. It reviews management methods and their progress, and questions several widely accepted views of free-ranging cats, notably that they live within dominance hierarchies and are highly social.Insightful and objective, this book includes: a functional approach, emphasizing sensory biology, reproductive physiology, nutrition, and spacepartitioning;clear treatment of how free-ranging cats should be managed;extensive critical interpretation of the world's existing literature;results of studies of cats in laboratories under controlled conditions, with data that can also beapplied to pet cats.Free-ranging Cats: Behavior, Ecology, Management is valuable to ecologists, conservation scientists, animal behaviorists, wildlife nutritionists, wildlife biologists, research and wildlife veterinarians, clinical veterinarians, mammalogists, and park and game reserve planners and administrators.

Stephen Spotte, Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, Florida, USATarpons arose from an ancient lineage, and just two species exist today, confined to the tropics and subtropics: Megalops atlanticus in the western and eastern Atlantic and Megalops cyprinoides distributed widely across the Indo-West Pacific. The Atlantic tarpon is considered king of the saltwater sport fishes and supports a multi-billion dollar recreational fishery in the U.S. alone. The Pacific tarpon, which is much smaller, is less valued by anglers. Both have limited commercial value but offer considerable potential for future aquaculture because of their hardiness, rapid growth, and ease of adaptation to captivity.This book is the latest and most thorough text on the biology, ecology, and fisheries (sport and commercial) of tarpons. The chapters comprise clear, intricate discourses on such subjects as early development and metamorphosis, population genetics, anatomical and physiological features and adaptations, migrations, reproductive biology, and culminate with a concise overview of the world's tarpon fisheries. A comprehensive appendix includes Spotte's original translations of important papers published previously by others in Spanish and Portuguese and unavailable until now to English readers.Tarpons: Biology, Ecology, Fisheries will be of considerable interest and use to fishery and research biologists, marine conservationists, aquaculturists, and informed anglers

With an ear for life's fractured melodies, marine biologist Stephen Spotte recounts his lifelong study of literature and the sea and his search for the mythical place where reason and revelation intersect.In The Smoking Horse, marine biologist Stephen Spotte recounts his youth from the mid-1950s through the turbulent 1960s. After growing up in a coal camp in southern West Virginia, he was expelled from a Maryland boarding school and over four summers lived a bohemian life in Beach Haven, New Jersey, working variously as a lifeguard, clamdigger, dishwasher, laborer, and milkman. Beach Haven in the early sixties was a riotous community of artists, musicians, drunks, junkies, and those who had simply fallen through life's cracks. It was, someone said, a seaside Greenwich Village, and in fact it became a weekend destination of New York City bohemians abandoning the hot summer sidewalks to mill with itinerant beach bums, boat jockeys, New Jersey pineys, and Philadelphia hipsters. It was here that Spotte began a lifelong study of literature and the sea, always with an ear to life's fractured melodies. Torn between art and empiricism, he moved to New York, haunting Village coffee shops, listening to beat poets, and following New York's jazz scene, where ragged sages claimed enlightenment in Coltrane's sax. Following stints as a deckhand in the West Indies he returned to college and trained to become a marine biologist. His professional life began in Niagara Falls, New York, where the Great Lakes were dying after years of pollution, the citizens struggling to breathe air reminiscent of the coal camps. The end of the memoir finds him separated from his wife and wandering alone in the Mexican desert astride a skeletal, marijuana-dependent horse and trailed by a stray dog, still seeking the mythical place where reason and revelation intersect.

In My Watery Self: An Aquatic Memoir, author/scientist Stephen Spotte traces a fascinating trail through a life that began in West Virgina coal camps, drifted through reckless bohemian times of countercultural indulgence in Beach Haven, New Jersey, and led to a career as a highly-respected marine biologist. Together, these stories form a view not just of one man's life, but that of a generation that often refused to take a direct path to the workplace, insisting instead on a winding unveiling of true self-realization, to achieve previously-unimagined outcomes. For Spotte, the key was water: His years of beach living led to a self-initiated study of literature and the sea. He eventually returned to college and received his training as a marine biologist, and discovered, through his singular voice, a wet and occasionally very weird perspective on the world. His writing is engrossing throughout, the stories he shares--such as his stint as curator of the New York Aquarium at Coney Island at the tail end of the hippie era--are compelling and thoroughly enjoyable as he elevates the people and situations he encounters to mythical levels, blending empirical observation with literary prose.