Ecotoxicology Essentials

Ecotoxicology Essentials: Environmental Contaminants and Their Biological Effects on Animals and Plants provides a comprehensive analysis of environmental contaminants and they ways they affect all aspects of the planet’s ecology, from microbes, to plants and animals and entire ecosystems. Humans are not immune from the effects of these contaminants and exposure can inflict serious illnesses and even death. This book is the latest contribution to our understanding of how contaminants move through the environment and the effects that they can produce at all levels. In these pages, the authors cover a broad range of topics, including the major types of contaminants, how they move through the environment, and how organisms, including humans, are exposed and affected. Much emphasis is placed on specific mechanisms of injury to organisms, populations, and communities. The text is clearly written and geared to students who have had some chemistry, ecology, and physiology. Numerous pictures and graphs help clarify topics and stimulate interest in the subject matter. Uses examples from both aquatic and terrestrial environments and species Includes datasets with worked examples of environmental risk assessments at the individual, population, and community levelsFocuses on the effects of contaminants on wildlife while containing enough chemistry to allow a detailed understanding of the contaminant groups Emphasizes natural examples and 'real' species, rather than laboratory studies on only a handful of organismsFeatures case histories that include aspects of how the contamination occurred and its effects on wildlifeWritten in a friendly, approachable style with a minimum amount of technical jargon