Field and Laboratory Methods for General Ecology

Book Description

This introductory ecology lab manual focuses on the process of collecting, recording and analyzing data, and equips students with the tools they need to function in more advanced science courses. It reflects the most current techniques for data gathering so that students can obtain the most accurate samples. Balanced coverage of plant, animal and physical elements offers a diverse range of exercises. Includes exercise on writing research reports.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent ecological field book.......2000-06-19

This guide has many techniques ideal for sampling many (and possibly any) habitat type. The guide includes field sheets for easy data entry, equations to obtain key ecological standards, plus a detailed description of the many techniques with cited references. Simply a handy tool and a "must have" when working in a field of so many different sampling techniques for different habitats.

The Diagnosis of Plant Diseases: A Field and Laboratory Manual Emphasizing the Most Practical Methods for Rapid Identification

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The Diagnosis of Plant Diseases: A Field and Laboratory Manual Emphasizing the Most Practical Methods for Rapid Identification
Rupert B. Streets
Manufacturer: University of Arizona Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0816503508

Field & laboratory methods for general ecology

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Field & laboratory methods for general ecology
James E Brower
Manufacturer: W.C. Brown Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Natural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0069746575

Field and Laboratory Methods of General Ecology

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Field and Laboratory Methods of General Ecology

Manufacturer: WCB/McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0697046575

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Field and Laboratory Methods of General Ecology
James E. Brower
Manufacturer: William C Brown Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Environmental Science | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Natural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Field and Laboratory Methods for General Ecology-Textbook Only

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Field and Laboratory Methods for General Ecology-Textbook Only
James E. Brower
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Higher Education
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0003989208

Book Description

256 pages (all in color)

Customer Reviews:

Detailed Information.......2002-11-04

It is very difficult to find guide books for this area. This one has lots of specifics. Information is given either by the area & village as well as by interest. There are maps of vineyards, museums, forests, food specialties and festivals.
It includes the large cities and details on the tiniest villages.
Andorra is also included.
We will be visiting this area soon and plan to keep this ready at all times.

Excellent color photos + essential information.......2001-01-19

This guide provides many color photos of the Pyrenees & Gascony. Help is given on planning a vacation there, with ideas of what to do and where to go. Topics such as food, churches, villages etc. are covered. However, with so many photos this guide may not provide all the detail you want from a guide. I personally recommend it for its photos as to supplement another guide which presents more facts. The area of accommodations is not covered and this would have been invaluable.

Amazon.com

With a background in paleobiology, Christopher McGowan is adept at asking deceptively simple but actually very awkward questions of the "Well, we've dug up this fossil skeleton, now how on God's earth did it ever fly?" variety. McGowan looks at the way the scale and shape of animals relate to their behavior, diet, and life span. Why, in other words, tortoises live far longer than guinea pigs, but aren't nearly as much fun.

This line of argument leads to some seriously counterintuitive physics as McGowan explains how animals of different scales handle and exploit the physical constants by which they are bound. Discussions of drag, inertia, and viscosity are particularly well handled.

Especially refreshing and entertaining is McGowan's happy willingness to admit that millions of years of evolution are smarter than he is. Sometimes animals just make no sense at all. Consider Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur with a 40-foot wingspan and a long, serpentine neck. How did it get off the ground? Its neck suggests it may have been a carrion feeder. Did it climb laboriously to the peak of some vast saurian carcass and hitch a passing thermal? "This entire scenario," McGowan admits, with delicious understatement, "strikes me as fanciful."

While Diatoms to Dinosaurs is marketed very much at adults, there is an infectious enthusiasm about McGowan's writing that suggests a gifted teacher sharing sophisticated just-so stories with a spellbound class. --Simon Ings, Amazon.co.uk

Book Description

In Diatoms to Dinosaurs, Chris McGowan takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the natural world, and examines life in all its various forms. He imparts the excitement of discovery and the joy of understanding as he demonstrates the central importance of size and scale to the survival of living organisms.

McGowan investigates a wide range of size-related phenomena, from the gliding mechanism of diatoms to blood pressure problems of dinosaurs. Questions asked - and answered - include:

Will we ever see giant insects the size of pterodactyls?
Why are ants so much stronger relative to body size than elephants?
What do a clam, a condor, a tortoise, and a sturgeon have in common?
How did the skeleton of a 28-ton Apatosaurus support its weight?
How can blood get from the heart to the head of a giraffe without rupturing blood vessels?

The author explicates the scientific concepts - both physical and biological - needed to inform the relevant phenomena: area/volume relations, metabolism and other basic physiology, kinetic energy, inertial forces, the biology of senescence, boundary layers, and Reynolds numbers. Numerous illustrations scattered throughout the text make the biophysical principles easily comprehensible to readers, regardless of their scientific sophistication.

Customer Reviews:

Intriguing........2002-06-21

The book is about muscles and skeletons, hearts, fluids and brains. Quite a large chunk of the book is about flight. I found the most captivating chapter was "Tiffany wings and kite strings". It is all about tiny fliers: microfilm model airplanes and microscopic flying insects. It reveals that the mechanism that insects use to fly is different to birds. After reading this, you may think twice about squishing the next harmless little insect that flies right by you. The section on drag was surprisingly very interesting.

Although it introduces familiar animals, it goes into enough detail to provide substantially new and rewarding information about these creatures, which you almost certainly won't be aware of. There are loads of great diagrams, which really make this book very enjoyable to read. The book is straightforward and I relished reading it.

A very very similar book is called "Cats' Paws and Catapults". It also contains many examples of design, although it is from an engineering perspective, and the focus is on comparing the design of evolution with that of technological invention. I think Diatoms to Dinosaurs is a much more interesting read - it is predominantly concerned with nature, not with technology. This book is simply more profound, but both books are very good.

No fireworks but comprehensive.......2001-10-20

This book covers a great many zoological issues connected with scale as succinctly as possible offering a fairly comprehensive treatment. It includes scalar descriptions in terms of physiology, intelligence, lifespan, flight and swimming (among others) and whearas the style may be staid, palaeontologists will find much to refer to in this book which is based on solid foundations rather than guesswork and opinions. A must for students, researchers and communicators on the subject.

Unlimited wonders of Life.......2001-03-16

An excellent exploration of the mysteries of living things.

We are surrounded by wonders. From the tiny phytoplankton with 7.5 micrometers in size, to the giant brachiosaurus weighing 78 tons, life manages to find its way, showing us facts that are just almost impossible to believe.

This is one of those books you can trust because is written for somebody who knows what he is writing about. Explores quite interesting subjects ranging from the movement of the wings doves and bats, to the heart rate of mice, and the naps of elephants. There are also very good illustrations in it.

Definitely, a very nice and productive reading for everybody, especially for those Lovers of Nature.

We need a wide mind to understand the wide wonders of Life.

Interesting Subject; Dull Book.......2000-04-16

This book almost repays the drudgery of reading it. It should be a case-study in poor editing. Apparently, no one ever quite decided who the audience was, and so it falls between any: though aimed at the general reader it is in essence a summary of technical literature - complete with maths, graphs, equations (more than a couple), and citations of authority in quasi-academic style. The text is at least one or two drafts from being finished; there are inadvertent repetitions, important points blurred or glossed over, paragraphs broken badly, and several discussions (including an entire chapter) that are off-topic and mostly pointless. McGowan's personal stories and asides are not well-integrated, as if an afterthought tacked on simply to soften his rather dry style. The illustrations are small, the photographs few and not directly relevant to the text.

McGowan seems to know what he is writing about; he needs an editor firmer and more adept and a publisher willing to put more money into the production.

Physics of biology: limits of animal size and speed........1998-08-19

McGowan has put together a nice book about basic limitations that physics sets on animal size, e.g. how insect respiratory system limits insect size, or how big a bird can fly, or how body shape, swimming speed and Reynolds numbers compare with plankton and whales. Even though the subtitle claims that the book is about "living things", there is nothing about plants, which is a pity because e.g. trees are extreme in size. McGowan's writing is lucid and the level is good for reading: there are a couple of equations and about hundred simple charts and figures (B&W, nothing fancy) which give good extra information to the text. You might also want to check Knut Schmidt-Nielsen's book "Scaling: Why Is Anaimal Size So Important".

Book Description

Based on the proceedings of the first International Conference on Matrix-Analytic Methods (MAM) in Stochastic Models, held in Flint, Michigan, this book presents a general working knowledge of MAM through tutorial articles and application papers. It furnishes information on MAM studies carried out in the former Soviet Union.

Advances in Matrix-Analytic Methods for Stochastic Models

Average customer rating:

A worthwhile addition

Advances in Matrix-Analytic Methods for Stochastic Models

Manufacturer: Notable Publications, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0966584708

Customer Reviews:

A worthwhile addition.......2000-04-18

This hard cover volume contains the papers presented at an international conference on matrix analytic methods. Matrix analytic methods are a body of techniques developed for algorithmic analysis of wide classes of applied probability models.

The papers in the volume are all of excellent quality and attest to the thorough refereeing/selection process the submissions should have been subjected to. Several of the papers report on what one may consider to be signficant and major advances in the field. In addition, there are several papers reporting on practical applications of the method.

The book is certainly a useful addition to the literature and has signficant value as a reference. The hard cover volume has a price that is commensurate with the quality of both its content and presentation.

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rare portrayal of African village life

A new perspective, but could be improved

Poorly written, random digressions, and very boring

A compelling look at life in rural Botswana

Political Menaing of Private Lives

When Rain Clouds Gather (African Writers Series)
Bessie Head
Manufacturer: Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Literature & Fiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 0435909614

Book Description

The poverty-stricken village of Golema Mmidi, in the heart of rural Botswana, offers a haven to the exiles gathered there. Makhaya, a political refugee from South Africa, becomes involved with an English agricultural expert and the villagers as they struggle to upgrade their traditional farming methods with modern techniques. The pressures of tradition, the opposition of the local chief, and, above all, the harsh climate threaten to bring tragedy to the community, but strangely, there remains a hope for the future.

Customer Reviews:

rare portrayal of African village life.......2004-04-11

A story about a black refugee from South Africa who finds a new home and the meaning of life in a small Botwana village. This book is a rare contemporary well-written portrayal of African village life, values, and impediments to progress.

A new perspective, but could be improved.......2004-02-18

"When Rain Clouds Gather" follows an African refugee named Makhaya across the border from South Africa into Botswana. He settles in the village of Golema Mmidi, where he starts life anew. Makhaya meets and Englishman by the name of Gilbert Balfour, who Makhaya joins to help ameliorate the life of the villagers.

The book concentrates mainly on the agricultural aspects of this rural African life. This subject was quite irksome at times, including several pages devoted to the subject of the grain millet. Those pages provided a very relevant point regarding the fact that many Africans wouldn't eat millet, because it was eaten by "lesser" tribes, even though it was a much tougher crop than what they were growing at the time. The author Bessie Head also provided a different perspective from the normal American viewpoint on political and social relations in this southern African country.

Notwithstanding the good description on life in a different part of the world, this book was quite platitudinous in nature. The writing lacked originality and style, which may discourage a reader. Admittedly, there may not have been any kind of action in rural Africa, but the plot line of this book went at a lethargic pace. Many of its subplots died off into nothingness, not to be mentioned again. For example, the political advisor to the chief of Golema Mmidi was mentioned a few times in the beginning of the book, giving the impression that he would play an important role later on. But partway through the story, he departs to a different part of the country, never to return. The book also lacked a definitive ending.

Generally speaking, "When Rain Clouds Gather" offers a good view into bucolic Africa. However, this fresh perspective does not make up for the lack of plot.

Poorly written, random digressions, and very boring.......2003-08-19

When Rain Clouds Gather has to be one of the most boring books I've ever read. The structure is way off as the author randomly describes different parts of the story that have long been forgotten or are irrelevant. Descriptions of characters, places, and background information occur way too often, sometimes taking up more than half of each chapter.

The story also switches focus randomly and way too often with no transitions and characters pop up out of nowhere. Most of these characters have no relation to the main story and I feel that they were just added in to make the book longer (for some stupid reason).

When Rain Clouds Gather is incredibly boring and I'm sorry to say that I would NOT recommend this book to ANYONE.

A compelling look at life in rural Botswana.......2003-01-01

"When Rain Clouds Gather," the novel by Bessie Head, tells the story of a black South African refugee named Makhayo. He crosses the border into Botswana and becomes part of the village of Golema Mundi, whose members are experimenting with new agricultural methods under the tutelage of a white Englishman named Gilbert Balfour. Makhaya quickly becomes entwined in the political and social lives of Gilbert and the villagers.

This book offers a fascinating look at rural African life. Head's topics include social and political change, conflict between science and traditional ways, tribalism, the role of traditional African chiefs, religion, race relations, and male-female relations.

Overall, a compelling story. The author bio at the beginning of the book notes that Head was herself born in South Africa and eventually was granted Botswanan citizenship. For a good companion text to this novel, try "the Villagers," by Jorge Icaza.

Political Menaing of Private Lives.......2001-03-28

"When Rain Clouds Gather" plot set is in Botswana in the 1960s, a country ridden with poverty and "primitive" agriculture, that is going through a process of independence from Britain. As a mirror view, we have independent South Africa - racist, violent and oppressive to the black population.

After serving time in prison, Fleeing the violence and oppression of South Africa in the mid-1960s, Makhaya crosses the border into Botswana. Here he finds himself in a poverty-stricken rural village - He moves to a rural town named Golema Mmidi ("to grow crops") and finds it populated with people who, like himself, are seeking a better life. Golama Mmidi is a place very different from his native Johannesburg. It is a time of great change for Botswana, as the country approaches independence.

Along with an idealistic English agriculturist, Balfour, Makhaya becomes involved in the villagers' struggle to adopt new agricultural techniques. In doing so, the community must overcome rigid customs, a corrupt local chief, and the unrelenting climate. Makhaya must struggle too against the bitterness and hatred within him that are a legacy of his life in South Africa.

This book has several layers of interesting political meanings. The plot of the book is not "political" per-se - the story is about the private lives of a private person, who happens to be a political activist and a political exile.

Moreover, it is strongly affected by Bessie Head's private life: Bessie Head was born in South Africa in 1937, the result of an 'illicit' union between a black man and a white woman. Her life was a traumatic one, and she drew heavily upon her own experiences for her novels. Unsuccessful marriage and her involvement in the trial of a friend led her to apply for a teaching post in Botswana, where she took up permanent exile. She greatly resisted attempts to categorize her writing as "African" or "feminist". Her work is highly individualized, rather than political, and defies this type of classification as a result.

On the other hand, we can't avoid the political. This book deals with several political issues. First, and foremost, Apartheid. The apartheid system in South Africa is firmly in place. It is a massive system of legalized segregation, repression, and domination by the white minority--first British and then later Afrikaaner. Long before the system was enacted formally - following the 1948 elections with the passage by the new Afrikaner government of increasingly restrictive and repressive legislation - the Blacks (and other "coloured" people) suffered unofficial discrimination.

During the early 1960s, opposition against Apartheid among Blacks and few Whites begins to show its first buds. The political activity of the opposition parties (Mandela's African National Congress and the Pan-African Congress) was banned in 1961. After political activism failed, the ANC formed a military wing to begin armed resistance. Two years later, Mandela was imprisoned. He was not released for 28 years (Mandela was later the first president of the new, post-Apartheid, South Africa). Violence drew more repression, that drew more resistance. Several events were specifically notable (the Sharpeville massacre, 1960; the Soweto uprisings in 1976). This is this novel's South Africa.

Another political issue is post-colonial Botswana. Botswana became independent in 1966 in a relatively peaceful way (compared to its neighbours, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, or northern Kenya) . Botswana was less changed by colonialism, mostly because it had fewer White settlers. The stakes for the whites were not so high, therefore, and the governing system had not been so disruptive as in other colonies.

Head is writing a period of transition, just before independence. There's an internal debate over whom should take power in the post-colonial period, and what kind of system should be adopted. The rivals are a conservative government (which eventually won the elections) and a Pan Africanist, socialist movement. A third political power, is of course, the traditional power. It is interesting to note, in this context, that weak and poor Botswana had been democratic throughout all of it's independence, since the mid-60, unlike most other African countries and especially neighbouring, strong, South Africa.

The people of Golema Mmidi seem determined to build their own kind of community--to shape their own politics--free from tribal, national, or international forces. However, other issues this book deals with are the status of women in Africa, tradition and religion vs. change and change in political power - from chiefdom (that protects from above like the colonial power) to independence (in mind, but also in government). I highly recommend this novel, to learn about a period.

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When rain clouds gather: And related readings (Literature connections)
Bessie Head
Manufacturer: McDougal Littell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0395775469

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When Rain Clouds Gather
Besie Head
Manufacturer: Heinemann Educational Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KIRDF2

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When Rain Clouds Gather
BESSIE HEAD
Manufacturer: Simon Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000K0GVRQ

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WHEN RAIN CLOUDS GATHER
Bessie Head
Manufacturer: Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JVEEFW

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When Rain Clouds Gather

Manufacturer: BANTAM
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000BGMZGK

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When Rain Clouds Gather
Bessie Head
Manufacturer: Bantam Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000PC44F0

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When Rain Clouds Gather and Related Readings (Literature Connections Source Book, High School Level)
Bessie Head , and McDougal Littell
Manufacturer: McDougal Littell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0395783895

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When Rain Clouds Gather Promo Edn
Tarner M
Manufacturer: Macmillan Education
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0333791088

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