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Marine biology
The ocean fascinates people all over the world, including, of course, students enrolled in undergraduate marine biology courses. For many students, taking marine biology is the natural expres¬sion of an interest in marine life that began by visiting the shore, scuba diving, recreational fishing, aquarium keeping, or viewing one of the many superb television documentaries about the ocean. Many students are also concerned about the increasing impacts of humans on marine ecosystems. Marine Biology, ninth edition, was written to reinforce and enhance our readers' enchantment with marine life while providing a rigorous introduction to marine biology as a science.
Marine Biology is used by high school, undergraduate, grad¬uate, and adult-education students, as well as by interested lay¬persons not enrolled in formal courses. We are gratified that many professional marine biologists use the book. The book is used in many countries outside the United States, and has been or is being translated into six other languages. While keeping this range of users in mind, the text is primarily written to meet the needs of lower-division, non-science majors at colleges and uni¬versities. For many of these students, marine biology will be their only tertiary science course, often taken to satisfy a general edu¬cation requirement. We have therefore been careful to provide solid basic science coverage, including principles of the scientific method, the physical sciences, and basic biology. Our aim has been to integrate this basic science content with a stimulating, up-to-date overview of marine biology. We hope this approach demonstrates the relevance of the physical sciences to biology and makes all sciences less intimidating. To this end, we use an infor¬mal writing style that emphasizes an understanding of concepts over rigorous detail and terminology.
Not all marine biology courses, of course, are intended to fulfill a basic science requirement, and in many the students already have a science background. To balance the needs of instructors teaching courses with and without prerequisites in biology or other sciences, we have designed the book to provide as much flexibility as possible in the use of the basic science material, the order in which topics are presented, and overall emphasis and approach. We have tried to meet the needs and expectations of a wide variety of students, from the scuba-diving philosophy major to the biology major considering a marine sci¬ence career. We hope a variety of readers other than university students also find the book useful and enjoyable.
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