Elements of Ecology

With a modular organization and a beautiful four color art program, the fourth edition of this leading text for non-majors continues to provide a clear presentation of the principles of ecology and illustrate their relation to today's environmental issues. Far-reaching in its coverage, the fourth edition provides the most up-to-date information with a new chapter on global warming and deforestation. It also focuses on ecology as a science, providing the basic background information needed to show the relevance of studying environmental problems on a global scale. A new supplement package-including an Instructor's Manual, printed and computerized test banks, and a four-color transparency acetate set-further strengthens the fourth edition as an excellent teaching tool for non-majors ecology courses.

Robert L. Smith holds a B.S. in Animal Science, an M.S. in Wildlife Biology along with a Ph.D. in Wildlife Biology from Cornell University. Currently, he is a professor of Ecology at West Virginia University. He has spent over 30 years teaching Ecology and conducting field research throughout the world.

His teaching responsibilities have involved mostly undergraduate courses in general ecology and graduate courses in population ecology and wildlife management. His research has included forest-fire related problems in southern West Virginia, vegetational development and succession on abandoned and reclaimed surface mines, the relation between forest vegetational structure and the forest bird community, and forest habitat assessment and habitat evaluation procedures based on vegetational structure.

Smith has served as a consultant to congressional committees, workshops on environmental education and energy and environmental problems, the National Landmarks program of the U.S. Department of Interior, National Research Council Task Forces on wildlife and fisheries issues and ecological classification systems for implementing environmental quality evaluation procedures. He is the author of numerous articles and reviews as well as the author of three ecology texts: Ecology and Field Biology, Elements of Ecology and Ecology of Man: An Ecosystem Approach, Harper and Row, New York.