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University of Barcelona Summer Course, Illa del Rei, Menorca, Sep 1997 Back in 1997, still as an undergrad, I was taking a summer course in an island within an island about island ecology. Illa del Rei is a little island in the natural port of Mahon, Menorca. As you see, I named the page you are visiting after the title of a book I got signed in that occassion by the author, one of the professors of that course. "Our biosphere" is a summary of Margalef's ideas and views on Ecology. Ideas that rippened in author's mind for decades. As Otto Kinne says in the introduction: "This book is the scientific testament of a foremost ecologist who has uniquely influenced our ways of comprehending Nature's many facets of producing, developing and directing life". Margalef explores general regularities in natural processes from single cells to the biosphere. Life modifies the surrounding environment in an attempt to control external energies, but neverending disturbances constantly reset the system back to the beginning. Biological information is suddenly and irreversibly lost and a new constructive cycle starts. It is within this successional change that life has evolved. Our biosphere is a product of this evolutionary process.
Conservation and Community Ecology
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University of Groningen
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