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Machine generated contents note: Preface and acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Conceptual confusion in ecology and its causes; 3. Causes of ecology's conceptual confusion; 4. Finding ourselves in philosophical terms; 5. Ecological pragmatism and constrained perspectivism - an introduction; 6. Ecological pragmatism and constrained perspectivism - ontology; 7. Ecological pragmatism and constrained perspectivism - metaphysics; 8. Ecological pragmatism and constrained perspectivism - epistemology; 9. Ecological pragmatism and constrained perspectivism - a summary; 10. The practice of constrained perspectivism in ecology; 11. What constrained perspectivism offers to the teaching of ecology; 12. The heroic handy man and the future of ecology; Glossary of philosophical terms; Index

A survey was distributed to members of the Ecological Society of America in 2014, which asked respondents to rate the usefulness of 131 of the most common, current ecological concepts. As part of the survey, key demographic and professional information was requested from respondents, including age, gender, education level, sector of employment, and primary area (i.e., domain) of interest in ecology. This paper reports how those factors interacted and affected concept ratings. Comprehensive analysis revealed many significant patterns. Among these, we discovered that concept ratings almost invariably increased with age, often dramatically. Also, there was a very strong tendency for males to rate concepts, in general, higher than did females, but the magnitudes of these differences were small. Furthermore, there was a significant gulf between the academic and government employment categories, characterized by academic respondents having rated most concepts higher. This research is important to the ecological community as a quantitative description of the kinds of variation existing among its constituents in terms of types and degrees of concept utility. Self‐knowledge is critical for understanding the discipline and for advancing its educational, research, and environmental initiatives. ; Peer Review

The classic papers that laid the foundations of modern ecology alongside commentaries by noted ecologists. The period of 1970 to 1995 was a time of tremendous change in all areas of ecology—from an increased rigor for experimental design and analysis to the reevaluation of paradigms, new models for understanding, and theoretical advances. Edited by ecologists Thomas E. Miller and Joseph Travis, Foundations of Ecology II includes facsimiles of forty-six papers from this period alongside expert commentaries that discuss a total of fifty-three key studies, addressing topics of diversity, predation, complexity, competition, coexistence, extinction, productivity, resources, distribution, abundance, and conservation. The result is more than a catalog of historic firsts; this book offers diverse perspectives on the foundational papers that led to today's ecological work. Like this book's 1991 predecessor, Foundations of Ecology edited by Leslie A. Real and James H. Brown, Foundations of Ecology II promises to be the essential primer for graduate students and practicing ecologists for decades to come