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This open access book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be more a concern than an accomplished task. Why is it so? The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that “thing” to which the word ‘biodiversity’ refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous.

Biology-Philosophy. --- Biodiversity. --- Ecology. --- Endangered ecosystems. --- Philosophy of Biology. --- Geoecology/Natural Processes. --- Ecosystems. --- Threatened ecosystems --- Biotic communities --- Nature conservation --- Balance of nature --- Biology --- Bionomics --- Ecological processes --- Ecological science --- Ecological sciences --- Environment --- Environmental biology --- Oecology --- Environmental sciences --- Population biology --- Biological diversification --- Biological diversity --- Biotic diversity --- Diversification, Biological --- Diversity, Biological --- Biocomplexity --- Ecological heterogeneity --- Numbers of species --- Ecology --- Philosophy. --- Vitalism --- Biology—Philosophy. --- Geoecology. --- Environmental geology. --- Biocenoses --- Biocoenoses --- Biogeoecology --- Biological communities --- Biomes --- Biotic community ecology --- Communities, Biotic --- Community ecology, Biotic --- Ecological communities --- Ecosystems --- Natural communities --- Geoecology --- Environmental protection --- Physical geology --- Philosophy --- Biology—Philosophy --- Biodiversity --- Environmental geology --- Physical geography. --- Biotic communities. --- Earth System Sciences. --- Geography

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This Open Access book combines philosophical and historical analysis of various forms of alternatives to mechanism and mechanistic explanation, focusing on the 19th century to the present. It addresses vitalism, organicism and responses to materialism and its relevance to current biological science. In doing so, it promotes dialogue and discussion about the historical and philosophical importance of vitalism and other non-mechanistic conceptions of life. It points towards the integration of genomic science into the broader history of biology. It details a broad engagement with a variety of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century vitalisms and conceptions of life. In addition, it discusses important threads in the history of concepts in the United States and Europe, including charting new reception histories in eastern and south-eastern Europe. While vitalism, organicism and similar epistemologies are often the concern of specialists in the history and philosophy of biology and of historians of ideas, the range of the contributions as well as the geographical and temporal scope of the volume allows for it to appeal to the historian of science and the historian of biology generally.

Philosophy --- Biology, life sciences --- History of medicine --- development of natural history --- case-study pointillism --- history of biology --- history and sociology --- life science and philosophy --- history of science --- organicism --- history and philosophy of the life sciences --- Biology—Philosophy. --- Life sciences. --- Medicine—History. --- Philosophy of Biology. --- Life Sciences. --- History of Medicine. --- Biosciences --- Sciences, Life --- Science --- Biology --- Medicine --- Philosophy. --- History. --- Health Workforce --- Vitalism --- Vitalism.