"With vivid, prismatic photos, zoologist Piper offers encounters with dozens of improbable-looking but beautiful organisms you've never heard of." --Entertainment Weekly

The animal kingdom in all its variety, featuring an astounding number of animal species that are overlooked in traditional surveys

Those of us who live in California know that it is an amazing place, and one of the reasons our state is so unique is the incredible diversity of life throughout its length and breadth. This atlas shows what the diversity of life in California is and where such resources are located.

This textbook provides the first overview of plant-animal interactions for twenty years focused on the needs of students and professors. It discusses a range of topics from the basic structures of plant-animal interactions to their evolutionary implications in producing and maintaining biodiversity. It also highlights innovative aspects of plant-animal interactions that can represent highly productive research avenues, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in a future career in ecology. Written by leading experts, and employing a variety of didactic tools, the book is useful for students and teachers involved in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses addressing areas such as herbivory, trophic relationships, plant defense, pollination and biodiversity.

During the last decades there has been an increasing evidence of drastic changes in marine ecosystems due to human-induced impacts, especially on benthic ecosystems. The so called “animal forests” are currently showing a dramatic loss of biomass and biodiversity all over the world. These communities are dominated by sessile suspension feeder organisms (such as sponges, corals, gorgonians, bivalves, etc.) that generate three-dimensional structures, similar to the trees in the terrestrial forest. The animal forest provide several ecosystem services such as food, protection and nursery to the associated fauna, playing an important role in the local hydrodynamic and biogeochemical cycles near the sea floor and acting also as carbon sinks. The present book focus its attention on these three dimensional animal structures including, for the first time, all the different types of animal forests of the world in a single volume.

This text provides a concise introduction to the field of animalbiology. Readers discover general principles of evolution, ecology, animal bodyplans, and classification and systematics. After these introductory chapters,readers delve into the biology of all groups of animals. The basic features ofeach group are discussed, along with evolutionary relationships among groupmembers. Chapter highlights include newly discovered features of animals asthey relate to ecology, conservation biology, and value to human society.Regular updates to the phylogenies within the book keep it current.