University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

If a person's entire field of study can be traced to a single source, for me this is it. Incredible as it may seem to ecologists today, prior to the publication of this book in 1954 there was very little--if any--framework for thinking about the role of abiotic factors like weather and climate in animal population dynamics. Today, of course, there is an abundance of research focusing on the impacts of climate change on the distribution and abundance of organisms, mine included. It is fair to say that it all started with this unassuming book. To repeat Darwin's quote that appears on the book's flyleaf: "Looking back, I think it was more difficult to see what the problems were than to solve them".