Description
The study of biodiversity is essential for the understanding of the complex phenomena upon which biological sciences are based. This book aims to be an updated and advanced source of the theoretical and practical aspects related to biological diversity suitable for graduated and Ph.D. students. This text seeks to open the doors to the study of biodiversity and its interconnections with ecology, evolution, economy and anthropogenic impacts starting from students to university teachers and researchers. The novelty of the ideas presented in this book is underlined by the McArthur Fellowship winner and renowned complex systems biologist, Stuart A. Kauffman, who gifted the foreword of this publication by his scientific story. During the academic semesters of Biology, Natural Sciences, Forestry and Environmental Sciences, the discussions related to the evolutionary patterns and the analysis of biodiversity is based upon complex arguments with a few and often quite old reference textbooks. This book provides different empirical approaches to the study of biodiversity and applied examples to better link and understand the theoretical background. Moreover, it is accompanied by graphical schematizations, figures and insights that can easily simplify most of the difficult issues related to this developing science. The parallel theoretical and practical approach of this book can be useful at any user level: for graduate students to better understand complex concepts with concrete examples and graphics; for teachers to supply their students with updated and concrete notions that can be linked to a more theoretical basis; for researchers to use the data and information gathered by the application of the methods described in the book and to analyse and discuss the results obtained on the basis of the hypotheses furnished in the wide literature review, with the final aim of writing scientific reports about biodiversity research. (Nova)