This greatly expanded second edition of "Nature's Patterns", with twice the page count, expands upon three basic premises. They are:
1-Everything, including ourselves, is connected to everything else.
2-Conservation is the act of identifying and preserving these interconnections.
3-Hope for mankind comes when enough people acquire a deep connectivity consciousness about Nature.
The book asks you to think about Nature as many highly connected ecosystems that operate according to six organizing principles. These principles become both constraints and opportunities for you to act as a steward of Nature by identifying, studying, and preserving her energy networks. In the language of the naturalist and through examples, case studies, and a basic analytic toolkit, the book employs the principles of modern system science to provide you with conservation ideas for preserving Nature’s interconnected ecosystems.
Interested readers will include students, educators, government conservation workers, thinkers, and all of those who wish to acquire a deeper understanding of how Nature’s ecosystems work. The ideas in this book will be useful to resource planners and managers within environmental organizations and government services. The material in this book has been used to teach a "Patterns In Nature" course to advanced junior and senior high school students. In addition, the material on Nature's energy networks has been used in college level courses. If you are a teacher, a park ranger, a docent, or a tour guide, the book’s consistent theme that “everything in Nature is connected” can be passed on to the youth and adults who receive your message.
The book is available in both soft cover and Kindle editions.
The Kindle version of this 292 page book is designed, formatted, and tested using the new Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD readers as well as all of the available free downloadable versions of Amazon Kindle readers for the PC, Mac, and Android tablet or phone. The book is fixed format and set in the horizontal (landscape) orientation. All images are in color.
The soft cover version of this book contains 275 pages and measures 6 inches by 9 inches. All images are black and white.
Bill Graham is a Marine Biologist who has worked in the US and Mexico for 30 years. He is an educator, a researcher, a writer, and a Nature photographer. In addition to writing books, Bill blogs on the subject of patterns in Nature, works on two conservation projects, oversees an environmental education program for local schools, and conducts special programs for talented Mexican youth.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Nature's Voices -- Three World Views
Nature's Aesthetic Voice
Nature's Spiritual Voice
Nature's Logical Voice
Speaking With One Voice
Nature's Organizing Principles - A Different Way Of Thinking
Organizing Principle #1 - Everything In Nature Is Interconnected
Organizing Principle #2 - Nature Is Composed Of Complex Systems
Organizing Principle #3 - Nature is Both Ordered And Chaotic
Organizing Principle #4 - Energy Is The Operating Currency Of Nature
Constructal theory
Nature's Network Architectures
Regular Networks
Random Networks
Small-World Networks
Complex (Scale-free) Networks
Organizing Principle #5 - Nature's Systems Are Usually Self Organizing and Emergent
Organizing Principle #6 - Much of Nature is Self Similar
Scaling
Organizing Principles - A Summary
Common Patterns In Nature
Stars, Bubbles, and Beehives
Sheep To Sunflowers
Time
Behavior and Intelligence
Case Studies - Challenges And Successes
Challenge #1 - Killing Cormorants
Challenge #2 - The Salmon Wars
Challenge #3 - The Conservation of Quiet
Challenge #4 - Grazing
Challenge #5 - San Pedro River
Good or Bad? - Invasive Species
Success Story #1 - Saving Sand Dunes National Park
Success Story #2 - Sea Otter Recovery
Success Story #3 - Holistic Ranching
Success Story #4 - Non-lethal Predator Control
Success Story #5 - Santa Cruz Island Fox and Eagle Recovery
Epilogue: A Connectivity Consciousness
Appendix #1 - List of Web Resources
Appendix #2 - An Analytical Toolkit
Using Pictures To Describe Nature
Using Characteristic Numbers To Describe Nature
Portraying Nature Using Graphs
Linear Graphs - Slope and Intercept
Non-linear Graphs
Exponents And Logarithms
The Ubiquitous Power Law
Degree Distributions In Nature
Computer Simulations
About The Author