Ecosystem Conservation and Management: Models and Application

✍ Scribed by Marino Gatto, Renato Casagrandi

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 292
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This textbook provides basic quantitative models allowing researchers and decision makers to a) assess viability of threatened populations and evaluate the success of species reintroductions, b) estimate invasion abilities of alien species, c) evaluate the persistence of metapopulations subjected to habitat destruction and fragmentation, d) analyze policies and strategies for the sustainable harvesting of biological resources, and e) assess the course of human and nonhuman diseases and the possible containment measures.

Air and water pollution, overexploitation of renewable resources (e.g. marine fish stocks and forests), massive land-use change together with climate change impact the Earth biodiversity and impair the functioning of ecosystems. Globalization increases the risk of diffusion of alien species and new pathogens.

A panoply of numerical problems mainly based on real data from the ecological literature enables the reader to practice the presented modelling tools.

presented modelling tools.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
Part I Species and Populations Threatened by Extinction
1 Threatened Biodiversity
1.1 What is Biodiversity?
1.2 Configuration and Distribution of Biodiversity
1.3 The Loss of Biodiversity
1.4 Causes of Threat and Extinction
1.5 The Value of Biodiversity
1.6 Preserving Biodiversity
References
2 The Risk of Extinction: Allee Effect and Genetic Deterioration
2.1 Demographic Phenomena in Populations Threatened by Extinction
2.2 A Brief Recapitulation of Basic Population Dynamics
2.3 Depensation Phenomena and the Allee effect
2.4 Simple Dynamic Models of the Allee Effect
2.5 Genetic Deterioration: Basics
2.5.1 Cell Structure and DNA
2.5.2 Cell Cycles and Reproduction
2.5.3 Genetic Variability
2.6 The Hardy-Weinberg Law
2.7 Genetic Drift and Wright's Formula
2.8 Effects of Genetic Drift on Population Dynamics
References
3 Extinction Risk Analysis: Demographic and Environmental Stochasticity
3.1 Population Fluctuations
3.2 The Different Types of Stochasticity
3.3 Individual Fitness and Models of Demographic and Environmental Stochasticity
3.4 Risk Analysis for Populations Subject to Demographic Stochasticity Only
3.4.1 Demographic Stochasticity in Malthusian Populations
3.4.2 Demographic Stochasticity in Density-Dependent Populations
3.5 Risk Analysis for Populations Subject to Environmental Stochasticity Only
3.5.1 Environmental Stochasticity in Malthusian Population
3.5.2 Estimating the Risk of Extinction
3.5.3 Environmental Stochasticity in Density-Dependent Populations
3.6 Extinction Vortices, Population Viability Analyses, IUCN Risk Categories
References
4 Problems on the Analysis of Extinction Risk
References
Part II Populations in Spatially Explicit Landscapes
5 Movement of Organisms and the Dynamics of Populations in Space
5.1 The Diffusion Process
5.2 Diffusion in an Infinite Domain
5.3 Diffusion in a Finite Habitat
5.4 Demographic Increase and Diffusion
5.4.1 Malthusian Growth and Dispersal in an Infinite Habitat
5.4.2 Malthusian Growth and Diffusion in a Finite Habitat with an Absorbing Barrier
5.4.3 Diffusion and Density-Dependent Population Growth
References
6 Habitat Fragmentation and Destruction: The Dynamics of Metapopulations
6.1 Metapopulations and Habitat Loss
6.2 Different Modelling Approaches to the Study of Metapopulations
6.3 Spatially Implicit Boolean Models
6.3.1 The Mainland-Island Model
6.3.2 The Model by ch6Levins69
6.4 The Effects of Habitat Destruction and Environmental Disasters
6.5 A Spatially Explicit Boolean Model
References
7 Problems on Spatial Ecology
References
Part III Sustainabilty of Biomass Harvesting and Its Management
8 The Management of Natural Populations Harvesting
8.1 Renewable Resources
8.2 Dynamics of a Harvested Population
8.3 Effects of Some Regulation Policies
8.4 The Problem of Maximum Sustainable Yield
8.5 The Bio-Economic Viewpoint
8.6 Harvesting Populations with Age and Size Structure
8.6.1 Optimal Rotation Period of a Renewable Resource and the Problem of Discounting
8.6.2 Managing the Harvest of Fish Populations with Constant Recruitment
References
9 Problems on the Management of Renewable Resource Harvesting
References
Part IV Parasite and Disease Ecology
10 Ecology of Parasites and Infectious Diseases
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Dynamics of Diseases Caused by Microparasites
10.2.1 Directly Transmitted Diseases
10.3 Water-Borne Diseases
10.4 Vector-Borne Diseases
10.5 Dynamics of Diseases Caused by Macroparasites
10.6 Host-Parasitoid Dynamics
References
11 Problems on the Ecology of Parasites and Disease
References
Index
Species Index
Author Index