Examining Ecology

Examining Ecology: Exercises in Environmental Biology and Conservation explains foundational ecological principles using a hands-on approach that features analyzing data, drawing graphs, and undertaking practical exercises that simulate field work. The book provides students and lecturers with real life examples to demonstrate basic principles. The book helps students, instructors, and those new to the field learn about the principles of ecology and conservation by completing a series of problems. Prior knowledge of the subject is not assumed; the work requires users to be able to perform simple calculations and draw graphs. Most of the exercises in the book have been used widely by the author’s own students over a number of years, and many are based on real data from published research. Exercises are succinct with a broad number of options, which is a unique feature among similar books on this topic.

The book is primarily intended as a resource for students, academics, and instructors studying, teaching, and working in zoology, ecology, biology, wildlife conservation and management, ecophysiology, behavioural ecology, population biology and ecology, environmental biology, or environmental science. Students will be able to progress through the book attempting each exercise in a logical sequence, beginning with basic principles and working up to more complex exercises. Alternatively they may wish to focus on specific chapters on specialist areas, e.g., population dynamics. Many of the exercises introduce students to mathematical methods (calculations, use of formulae, drawing of graphs, calculating simple statistics). Other exercises simulate fieldwork projects, allowing users to ‘collect’ and analyze data which would take considerable time and effort to collect in the field.