Vertebrate Zoology

Download or read book Vertebrate Zoology written by Nelson G. Hairston and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1994-06-24 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a major new textbook that is intended to lead students away from purely descriptive zoology courses into an experimental approach that emphasizes asking and answering questions about nature. The book gives a panoramic view of vertebrate life, classification, ecology and behaviour. Section I of the book describes the major groups of vertebrates and their origins. The second section covers classification and its methodology. Section III describes the ecology of vertebrates from two standpoints: how individuals cope with environmental extremes, and principles of population and community ecology as illustrated by experiments carried out in the field. Section IV describes the geographic distribution of vertebrates. The fifth section discusses migration. Vertebrate behaviour is the subject of the final section and covers observations and the theories and experiments they have inspired.