The Background of Ecology
Concept and Theory

Robert P. McIntosh (Author)

9780521270878, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 September 1986

400 pages
23 x 15.6 x 2.4 cm, 0.59 kg

'[Robert McIntosh's] classification of doctrinal tendencies and portrayal of leading controversies provides a valuable guide to a vast and still largely uncharted sea … it is throughout a reference work of distinction and one which is sure to be of interest to ecologists as well as to historians.' Nature

The Background of Ecology is a critical and up-to-date review of the origins and development of ecology, with emphasis on the major concepts and theories shared in the ecological traditions of plant and animal ecology, limnology, and oceanography. The work traces developments in each of these somewhat isolated areas and identifies, where possible, parallels or convergences among them. Dr McIntosh describes how ecology emerged as a science in the context of nineteenth-century natural histor

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Antecedents of ecology
2. The crystallization of ecology
3. Dynamic ecology
4. Quantitative community ecology
5. Population ecology
6. Ecosystem ecology, systems ecology, and big biology
7. Theoretical approaches to ecology
8. Ecology and environment
References
Name index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Applied ecology [RNC], Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]