An understanding of the dynamics of populations is critically important to ecologists, evolutionary biologists, wildlife managers, foresters, and many other biologists. This edited treatise brings together the latest research on how populations fluctuate in size, the factors that drive these changes, and the theories explaining how populations are regulated. The book also includes specific chapters dealing with insects of economic importance.

Aimed primarily at advanced graduate students and professional biologists, this book explores the degree to which animal*b1plant interactions are determined by plant and animal variability. Many of the patterns seen in natural communities appear to result from cascading effects up as well as down the trophic system. Variability among primary producers can influence animal and plant population quality and dynamics, community structure, and the evolution of animal*b1plant interations.

In spite of the fact that parasites represent more than half of all living species of plants and animals, their role in the evolution of life on earth has been substantially underestimated. Here, for the first time within an evolutionary and ecological framework, Peter Price integrates the biological attributes that characterize parasites ranging from such diverse groups as viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and fungi, to helminths, mites, insects, and parasitic flowering plants.

Synthesizing systematics, ecology, behavioral biology, genetics, and biogeography, the author outlines the...

This study of distribution, abundance and population size variation in animals (formerly regarded as pure ecological subjects) is presented in an evolutionary framework. Arguing that evolved characters of organisms such as morphology, behavior and life history influence their ecological relationships, this new conceptual framework is broadly relevant to ecologists, evolutionary biologists, behavioral scientists and entomologists.

This book is the result of an international symposium on gall-inducing arthropods, which was held September 5-9, 2005, in Kyoto, Japan. It was organized as the 4th international symposium on gall-inducing insects and as the symposium of the In ternational Union of Forestry Research Organizations (lUFRO) working group, 7.03.02, Gall-Inducing Insects. The book addresses recent developments in the ecology, evolution, systematics, physiology, and biodiversity of gall-inducing arthropods, with individual contri butions ranging in scope from detailed descriptions to profoundly synthetic stud ies....

Combining breadth of coverage with detail, this cohesive introduction to insect ecology couples concepts with empirical examples and practical applications.

To gain a more complete understanding of plant-based ecological community structure requires knowledge of the integration of direct and indirect effects in plant herbivore systems. Trait modification of plants as a result of herbivory is very common and widespread in terrestrial plants, and this initiates indirect interactions between organisms that utilise the same host plant. This 2007 book argues that food webs by themselves are inadequate models for understanding ecological communities, because they ignore important indirect, nontrophic links. This subject is of great importance in...