This book focuses on mechanisms of human adaptability. It integrates findings from ecology, physiology, social anthropology, and geography around a set of problems or constraints posed by human habitats.

This book focuses on mechanisms of human adaptability. It integrates findings from ecology, physiology, social anthropology, and geography around a set of problems or constraints posed by human habitats.

Designed to help students understand the multiple levels at which human populations respond to their surroundings, this essential text offers the most complete discussion of environmental, physiological, behavioral, and cultural adaptive strategies available. Among the unique features that make Human Adaptability outstanding as both a textbook for students and a reference book for professionals are a complete discussion of the development of ecological anthropology and relevant research methods; the use of an ecosystem approach with emphasis on arctic, high altitude, arid land, grassland, tropical rain forest, and urban environments; an extensive and updated bibliography on ecological anthropology; and a comprehensive glossary of technical terms. Entirely new to the third edition are chapters on urban sustainability and methods of spatial analysis, with enhanced emphasis throughout on the role of gender in human-adaptability research and on global environmental change as it affects particular ecosystems. In addition, new sections in each chapter guide students to websites that provide access to relevant material, complement the text's coverage of biomes, and suggest ways to become active in environmental issues.

Designed to help students understand the multiple levels at which human populations respond to their surroundings, this essential text offers the most complete discussion of environmental, physiological, behavioral, and cultural adaptive strategies available. Among the unique features that make Human Adaptability outstanding as both a textbook for students and a reference book for professionals are a complete discussion of the development of ecological anthropology and relevant research methods; the use of an ecosystem approach with emphasis on arctic, high altitude, arid land, grassland, tropical rain forest, and urban environments; an extensive and updated bibliography on ecological anthropology; and a comprehensive glossary of technical terms. Entirely new to the third edition are chapters on urban sustainability and methods of spatial analysis, with enhanced emphasis throughout on the role of gender in human-adaptability research and on global environmental change as it affects particular ecosystems. In addition, new sections in each chapter guide students to websites that provide access to relevant material, complement the text's coverage of biomes, and suggest ways to become active in environmental issues.

Biological evolution is a fact—but the many conflicting theories of evolution remain controversial even today. When Adaptation and Natural Selection was first published in 1966, it struck a powerful blow against those who argued for the concept of group selection—the idea that evolution acts to select entire species rather than individuals. Williams’s famous work in favor of simple Darwinism over group selection has become a classic of science literature, valued for its thorough and convincing argument and its relevance to many fields outside of biology. Now with a new foreword by Richard Dawkins, Adaptation and Natural Selection is an essential text for understanding the nature of scientific debate.

Undoubtedly this symposium will prove to be an important landmark in the development of our understanding of the psychopathology of human adaptation in general, as well as of the general adaptation syndrome and stress in particular. It was organized to give an opportunity to an international group of experts on adaptation and stress research to present summaries of their research that could then later be exhaustively analyzed. The carefully structured program brings out three major aspects of adapta tion to stress in experimental animals and man. The first section deals with the neurophysiology of stress responses, placing major emphasis upon the neuroanatomical and neurochemical aspects involved. The second section is devoted to the psychology and psychopathology of adaptive learning, motivation, anxiety, and stress. The third section examines the role played by stress in the pathogenesis of mental diseases. Many of the relevant subjects receive particularly detailed attention. Among these, the following are especially noteworthy: The existence of reward and drive neurons. Constitutional differences in physiological adaptations to stress and d- tress. Motivation, mood, and mental events in relation to adaptive processes. Peripheral catecholamines and adaptation to underload and overload. Selective corticoid and catecholamine responses to various natural stimuli. The differentiation between eustress and distress. Resistance and overmotivation in achievement-oriented activity. The dynamics of conscience and contract psychology. Sources of stress in the drive for power. Advances in the therapy of psychiatric illness. The application of experimental studies on learning to the treatment of neuroses.