Product Review

The late Eugene Odum was a pioneer in systems ecology and is credited with bringing ecosystems into the mainstream public consciousness as well as into introductory college instruction. FUNDAMENTALS OF ECOLOGY was first published in 1953 and was the vehicle Odum used to educate a wide audience about ecological science. This Fifth Edition of FUNDAMENTALS OF ECOLOGY is co-authored by Odum's protege Gary Barrett and represents the last academic text Odum produced. The text retains its classic holistic approach to ecosystem science, but incorporates and integrates an evolutionary approach as well. In keeping with a greater temporal/spatial approach to ecology, new chapters in landscape ecology, regional ecology, and global ecology have been added building on the levels-of-organization hierarchy. Also, a final chapter entitled "Statistical Thinking for Students of Ecology" provides a quantitative synthesis to the field of statistics. Contemporary and engaging, this text brings clarity and specificity to the study of ecology in the twenty-first century.