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Ecology and Environment: The Cycles of Life (New Encyclopedia of Science)
Ecology and Environment The Cycles of Life - New Encyclopedia of Science Author:Sally Morgan, Oxford University Press Each creature on Earth has adapted physiologically, and has developed suitable behavior, to inhabit a particular environmental niche or habitat. Likewise each one occupies a distinct position in the food chain, as the Sun's energy is captured by plants, passed on to herbivores and then to carnivores who eat them. Eventually this energy is retu... more »rned to the soil and fed back into the cycle. There are countless environments within a number of much larger ecological areas known as biomes. As species evolve and try to find better niches for themselves, and as climatic or geological conditions change, so the environments and their ecologies are constantly dynamic. The intervention of humans, able to wreak large-scale changes on entire continents, has speeded up a process that has existed naturally for millennia. But in so doing, human activity has shown the fragility of the system and threatens to destroy entire ecologies and render many species extinct. This encyclopedia looks at the interactions of the physical and the living environments within which all living creatures exist. It examines the biomes and the physical factors that affect life on Earth, including the major chemical cycles--water, nitrogen, and carbon--that sustain it. The work also covers the interrelationships of the many life forms in food webs and chains, and culminates in a reasoned discussion of the human impact on the Earth's ecology. In an age when environmental issues are widely discussed, often with confusion and extreme claims on all sides, this enlightening account represents an invaluable resource of the home, school, and library.« less