The Extended Organism by J Scott Turner
Can the structures that animals build - from the humble burrows of earthworms to towering termite mounds to the Great Barrier Reef - be said to live? However counterintuitive the idea might first seem, physiological ecologist Scott Turner demonstrates in this book that many animals construct and use structures to harness and control the flow of energy from their environment to their own advantage. Building on Richard Dawkins's classic, "The Extended Phenotype", Turner shows why drawing the boundary of an organism's physiology at the skin of the animal is arbitrary. Since the structures animals build undoubtedly do physiological work, capturing and channelling chemical and physical energy, Turner argues that such structures are more properly regarded not as frozen behaviours but as external organs of physiology and even extensions of the animal's phenotype. By challenging dearly held assumptions, a fascinating new view of the living world is opened to us, with implications for our understanding of physiology, the environment, and the remarkable structures animals build.
Turner, J. Scott: - J. Scott Turner is Associate Professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780674001510 |
| ISBN 10 | 0674001516 |
| Title | The Extended Organism |
| Author | J Scott Turner |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press |
| Year published | 2000-07-10 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |