The saguaro, with its great size and characteristic shape—its arms stretching heavenward, its silhouette often resembling a human—has become the emblem of the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona and northwestern Mexico. The largest and tallest cactus in the United States, it is both familiar and an object of fascination and curiosity. This book offers a complete natural history of this enduring and iconic desert plant. Gathering everything from the saguaro’s role in Sonoran Desert ecology to its adaptations to the desert climate and its sacred place in Indigenous culture, this book shares precolonial through current scientific findings. The saguaro is charismatic and readily accessible but also decidedly different from other desert flora. The essays in this book bear witness to our ongoing fascination with the great cactus and the plant’s unusual characteristics, covering the saguaro’s: history of discovery, place in the cactus family, ecology, anatomy and physiology, genetics, and ethnobotany. The Saguaro Cactus offers testimony to the cactus’s prominence as a symbol, the perceptions it inspires, its role in human society, and its importance in desert ecology.

A collection of writings on the ecology, evolution, and conservation of columnar cacti and their vertebrate mutualists, demonstrating that the survival of these cacti depends on animals who pollinate them and disperse their seeds.

North America contains an incredibly diverse array of naturalenvironments, each supporting unique systems of plant and animallife. These systems, the largest of which are biomes, formintricate webs of life that have taken millennia to evolve. Thisrichly illustrated book introduces readers to this extraordinaryarray of natural communities and their subtle biological andgeological interactions. Completely revised and updated throughout, the second edition ofthis successful text takes a qualitative, intuitive approach to thesubject, beginning with an overview of essential ecological termsand concepts, such as competitive exclusion, taxa, niches, andsuccession. It then goes on to describe the major biomes andcommunities that characterize the rich biota of the continent,starting with the Tundra and continuing with Boreal Forest,Deciduous Forest, Grasslands, Deserts, Montane Forests, andTemperature Rain Forest, among others. Coastal environments,including the Laguna Madre, seagrasses, Chesapeake Bay, and barrierislands appear in a new chapter. Additionally, the book covers manyunique features such as pitcher plant bogs, muskeg, the polar icecap, the cloud forests of Mexico, and the LaBrea tar pits.“Infoboxes” have been added; these include biographiesof historical figures who provided significant contributions to thedevelopment of ecology, unique circumstances such as frogs andinsects that survive freezing, and conservation issues such asthose concerning puffins and island foxes. Throughout the text,ecological concepts are worked into the text; these includebiogeography, competitive exclusion, succession, soil formation,and the mechanics of natural selection. Ecology of North America 2e is an ideal first text forstudents interested in natural resources, environmental science,and biology, and it is a useful and attractive addition to thelibrary of anyone interested in understanding and protecting thenatural environment.

"Offers the latest findings and research breakthroughs in plant ecology, as well as consideration of classic topics in environmental science and ecology. This wide-ranging compendium serves as an extremely accessible and useful resource for relative newcomers to the field as well as seasoned experts. Investigates plant structure and behavior across the ecological spectrum, from the leaf to the ecosystem levels."

Following a description of the physical and biological characterization of the four North American deserts together with the primary adaptations of plants to environmental stress, the authors go on to present case studies of key species. They provide an up-to-date and comprehensive review of the major patterns of adaptation in desert plants, with one chapter devoted to several important exotic plants that have invaded these deserts. The whole is rounded off with a synthesis of the resource requirements of desert plants and how they may respond to global climate change.