Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry CountryLibby Robin, Robert Heinsohn, Leo Joseph In Boom and Bust, the authors draw on the natural history of Australia's charismatic birds to explore the relations between fauna, people and environment in a continent where variability is 'normal' and rainfall patterns not always seasonal. They consider changing ideas about deserts and how these have helped us understand birds and their behaviour in this driest of continents. The book describes the responses of animals and plants to environmental variability and stress. It is also a cultural concept, when it is used to capture the patterns of change wrought by humans in Australia, where landscapes began to become cultural about 55,000 years ago as ecosystems responded to Aboriginal management. In 1788, the British settlement brought, almost simultaneously, both agricultural and industrial revolutions to a land previously managed by fire for hunting. How have birds responded to this second dramatic invasion? Boom and Bust is also a tool for understanding global change. How can Australians in the 21st century better understand how to continue to live in this land as its conditions are still dynamically unfolding in response to the major anthropogenic changes to the whole Earth system? This interdisciplinary collection is written in a straightforward and accessible style. Many of the writers are practising field specialists, and have woven their personal field work into the stories they tell about the birds. |
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
It runs like hell | 35 |
lessons in how to be a zebra finch | 45 |
survivors in a changing world | 75 |
flexible responses to uncertainty | 95 |
fugitives of the inland | 121 |
last of the dromornithids | 147 |
Other editions - View all
Boom & Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country Libby Robin,Leo Joseph,Robert Heinsohn Limited preview - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
000 years ago Aboriginal Adelaide animals arid Australia arid zone Australian birds Australian desert Australian pelican avian banded stilt behaviour Biology boom and bust brolga Canberra Central Australia climate change colony continent Coongie cooperative breeding Coorong Creek CSIRO Davies SJJF dromornithids drought ecology ecosystems eggs environment environmental evolution evolutionary extinction fauna flood fossil Frith Genyornis eggshell Gould grass grey teal groups habitat Heinsohn human inland Australia Johnson BJ Journal kangaroo Lake Eyre Basin land London megafauna Melbourne migration Miller GH movement Museum National native-hens natural nesting night parrot nomadic northern numbers opportunistic ornithologist oscines passerines patterns Perth plants Pleistocene population Quaternary rain rainbird rainfall ratites region Rich PV River Roshier Science season seeds semi-arid Serventy DL South Australia South Wales species Sturt Sydney tion tralia University Press variability Victoria waterbirds Western Australia wetlands white-winged choughs Whittell HM woodswallows Zann RA zebra finches