A Tree is Just a Forest's Way of Making Another Forest
approach of Eugene and Howard Odum. See the inside front cover diagram in Fundamentals of Ecology (Odum and Barrett 2005) depicting the need to inte grate these two approaches. In chapter 10, which deals with population and the balance of nature, I became concerned about the balance in the level of organization approach when I read that many questions of community ecology will be explored "in the next eleven chapters." I think that succession, the subject of chapter 11, requires an understanding of both community and ecosystem development. However, I was pleased that chapters 12 and 13, dealing with community interactions such as biodiversity and food webs, were followed with chapters focusing on disturbance ecology (chapter 14) ecosystem ecology (chapters 15 and 16) and landscape ecology (an excellent chapter 17) Thus, the author does provide balance between schools of thought and equal discussion among levels of organization. The book closes with four chapters on applied ecology: "How to Fish Sustainably" (chapter 18) "Why We Cannot Eliminate Pests" (chapter 19) "Endangered Species and Ecosystems" (chapter 20) and "Human Health and Human Impacts" (chapter 21) Krebs explains the ecological science behind these long term, global scale problems and points out that solutions will require the public's involvement and understanding. He optimistically concludes that if society does decide to address the issues with an integrative approach, solutions can be found. Earlier in my career, I adopted various editions of G. Tyler Miller's outstanding environmental science book Sustaining the Earth (Brooks Cole, 2003; 6th ed. for my introductory courses on environmental biology and environmental issues. I consider The Ecological World View to be the next generation of such venerable textbooks because it is written in a nontechnical language, yet it covers the history of ecology and its scientific methodology accurately and lucidly. Thus, the science of ecology is made accessible to those who would be concerned and informed environmentalists, regardless of their field of study. Few textbooks can accomplish this objective.