Insect Ecology: An Ecosystem Approach, Fourth Edition, follows a hierarchical organization that begins with relatively easy-to-understand chapters on adaptive responses of insect populations to various environmental changes, disturbances, and anthropogenic activities, how insects find food and habitat resources, and how insects allocate available energy and nutrients. Chapters build on fundamental information to show how insect populations respond to changing environmental conditions, including spatial and temporal distribution of food and habitat. The next section integrates populations of interacting species within communities and how these interactions determine structure of communities over time and space. Other works in insect ecology stop there, essentially limiting presentation of insect ecology to evolutionary responses of insects to their environment, including the activities of other species. The unique aspect of this book is its four chapters on ecosystem structure and function, and how herbivores, pollinators, seed predators, and detritivores drive ecosystem dynamics and contribute to ecosystem stability.

This new and updated edition provides the most advanced synthesis of insect ecology, following a hierarchical organization that explores adaptive responses of insect populations to various environmental changes, disturbances, and anthropogenic activities, and how insects find food and habitat resources and allocate available energy and nutrients

About the Author
Timothy D. Schowalter received his Ph.D. degree in Entomology from the University of Georgia in 1979. He is currently a Professor of Entomology at Louisiana State University, where he also served as the department head until 2015. Previously, he was a professor of entomology at Oregon State University, Corvallis. Dr. Schowalter served as Program Director for Integrative and Theoretical Ecology at the National Science Foundation, where he was involved in developing global change and terrestrial ecosystem research initiatives at the federal level. He also served as a U.S. delegate to international conventions to develop collaboration between U.S. Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites and long-term sites in Hungary and East Asia and the Pacific.

Reviews
"I consider Schowalter's Insect Ecology to be the consummate text on the topic as the author has a very broad and diverse perspective on insect ecology. The ecosystem-level perspective Schowalter takes in this book fills the need to incorporate insects and their influence into a larger, applied context. Insects have huge impacts on timber availability, large scale fires, and the carbon sink capacity of our forests. Understanding insects' influence on these disturbances and ecosystem services is essential for land managers, restoration project managers, and environmental consultants, in addition to research scientists." --Dr. Samantha Chapman, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Villanova University



Book Information
ISBN 9780128030332
Author Timothy D. Schowalter
Format Hardback
Page Count 774
Imprint Academic Press Inc
Publisher Elsevier Science Publishing Co Inc
Weight(grams) 2410g