This classic text discusses radiation, convection, conduction, and evaporation, surveying methods for the study of photosynthesis in plants and energy budgets in animals — an excellent resource for a variety of fields, particularly ecology, agronomy, forestry, botany, and zoology. "Coherent and comprehensible." — The American Biology Teacher. 174 figures. 30 tables.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 1 review)

A fascinating book

I am a physicist, not an ecologist, but still found this book fascinating. It deals with the interface between physics and biology, focusing primarily on heat and mass transfer in living organisms. A large section of the book is devoted to radiative heat transfer, which is the dominant heat transfer mechanism in many every day situations. Gates has many interesting examples sprinkled through the text. For instance, there is an interesting discussing of evaporative cooling of birds and mammals, including the relative importance of panting versus sweating. An accompanying graph, from the author's research, shows the evaporative losses of a ground squirrel as a function of ambient temperature. There are also formulas given for estimating evaporative losses. There are many other interesting discussions (evaporation losses of lakes, body temperatures of birds, skylight irradiation on sloped surfaces, etc.). Lots of interesting stuff. The book requires knowledge of trigonometry. It would also be very helpful to have had exposure to heat transfer concepts, especially radiative heat transfer. Without that, book may be tough going for some. Overall, I found the book well written and very enjoyable
January 05, 2004

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