From Book News, Inc.
A text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and reference for specialists in stream ecology and related fields. It summarizes the developments of the past 20 years, with an emphasis on studies based in small streams, at middle or higher latitudes, and reported in the English-language literature. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.


Book Description
Running waters are enormously diverse, ranging from torrential mountain brooks, to large lowland rivers, to great river systems whose basins occupy subcontinents. While this diversity makes river ecosystems seem overwhelmingly complex, a central theme of this volume is that the processes acting in running waters are general, although the settings are often unique. The past two decades have seen major advances in our knowledge of the ecology of streams and rivers. New paradigms have emerged, such as the river continuum and nutrient spiralling. Community ecologists have made impressive advances in documenting hte occurrence of species interactions. The importance of physical processes in rivers has attracted increased attention, particularly the areas of hydrology and geomorphology, and the inter-relationships between physical and biological factors have become better understood. And as is true for every area of ecology during the closing years of the twentieth century it has become apparent that the study of streams and rivers cannot be carried out by excluding the role of human activities, nor can we ignore the urgency of the need for conservation. These developments are brought together in Stream Ecology: Structure and function of running waters, designed to serve as a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and as a refrence book for specialists in stream ecology and related fields.

ANNOTATION

Written by an eminent freshwater ecologist, this book summarizes the functional ecology of flowing waters and provides fundamental training in stream ecology for future generations of researchers. Designed to be a standard textbook for ecology courses, it successfully integrates the state of the art in stream ecology. 120 line drawings.

FROM THE CRITICS

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