Ecological Versatility and Community Ecology

ISBN-13: 9780521405539 / Angielski / Twarda / 1995 / 456 str.

Victoria) Ralph C. MacNally (Monash University

Opis

There are mounting concerns that the management of our natural global heritage is failing to arrest the rapid extinction of enormous numbers of "specialized" species, especially in the tropics. This book is about specialization and generalization in the use of resources and habitats. The author employs a broad ecological perspective to address three main questions: how ecologists study variation in resource and habitat use and what we learn from these studies; how well existing theory accounts for observations and what the common threads among disciplines are; and finally, what the relationship between resource and habitat use is. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive analysis of ecological versatility and as such, will be of great interest to students and researchers in ecology and environmental biology.

Recenzje

' … probably the first book devoted to this field and it contains some valuable work.' Brian S. Rushton, The Times Higher Education Supplement

Spis treści

Preface; 1. An introduction to ecological versatility; 2. Defining and measuring versatility; 3. Studies of versatility in natural populations; 4. The influence of interspecific interactions on versatility; 5. The influence of population structure on versatility; 6. Ecological versatility and population dynamics; 7. Versatility and interspecific competition; 8. Ubiquity or habitat diversity; 9. Recapitulation and commentary; Glossary of terms; Appendices; References.