Ecology: Evolution, Application, Integration

Ecology: Evolution, Application, Integration, Second Edition, is designed to provide students and instructors with a groundbreaking evolutionary approach that transforms ecology from a collection of disassociated facts into an integrated, concept-driven discipline, all the while shedding light on the impact humans have on ecosystems. Importantly, the text develops scientific reasoning skills by teaching students not just what we know about the field, but also how we know what we know about it.
Ecology: Evolution, Application, Integration, Second Edition implements two key pedagogical approaches. First, the text integrates modern evolutionary theory throughout. Why is evolution pedagogically valuable? Evolution has great explanatory power-most ecological interactions are rooted in adaptive evolution. Moreover, as students learn to place ecological problems in an evolutionary context, they find they can memorize less because they are able to deduce key ideas. Second, the text employs a question-based pedagogy. Each chapter begins with a fundamental ecological question. The sections of the chapter are designed around a logical sequence of smaller questions, the answers to which eventually enable the student to answer the chapter's main question. This approach models the process of science-researchers address fundamental ecological questions in the same way. As students gain experience with this approach they can apply it to new problems and questions.