Mutualistic interactions between ants and plants involve rewards offered by plants and services performed by ants in a mutually advantageous relationship. The rewards are principally food and/or nest sites, and ants in turn perform a number of services for plants: they disperse and plant seeds; they protect foliage, buds, and reproductive structures from enemies such as herbivores and seed predators; they fertilize plants with essential nutrients; and they may sometimes function as pollinators. In this book, initially published in 1985, Professor Beattie reviews the fascinating natural...

The central thesis for plant ecology is that climate exerts the dominant control on the distribution of the major vegetation types of the world. This book sets out to examine this often neglected area in two ways. In the first part the author analyses the distribution of species in relation to climate over different scales of time and place. In the second, he reviews the various approaches to explaining observed correlation between plant distribution and climate, and to establishing the mechanisms of control in physiological and biochemical terms. Dr Woodward is an authority on plant-climate...

A great many terrestrial plants live in close association with fungi. The features of this association known as mycorrhiza, are those of a mutualistic symbiosis. Almost all plants form mycorrhizae whereby the fungus provides soil resources to the plant in exchange for energy manufactured by the plant. The symbiosis means greater productivity under stress for the plant and a steady energy supply for the fungus. This book addresses the diverse and complex ways in which mycorrhizae affect the mechanisms for plant survival as individuals and populations, for community structure, and for ecosystem...

This book assembles the relevant studies of fire intensity, rate of spread, fuel consumption, fire frequency, and fire weather in the North American boreal forest. The central thesis is that the North American boreal forest has at least four wildfire characteristics that are important in understanding the dynamics of its plant populations: the large size of the burns with respect to dispersal distances; the short recurrence time of fire with respect to tree lifespans; the high mortality of plants due to the predominance of crown fires; and a good germination surface due to the large area of...

Ecological Experiments stresses the importance of manipulative field experimentation in ecology as being superior to the observational method. The book begins with a series of ecological questions that can be answered by experiments, such as: what is the importance of competition among scientists? The minimal requirements of experimental design that should be met for satisfactory field experiments are then introduced, and examples of good and poor experiments from the literature are examined in this light along with a consideration of the trade-offs that may be forced on the experiment by the...

This book assembles the relevant studies of fire intensity, rate of spread, fuel consumption, fire frequency, and fire weather in the North American boreal forest. The central thesis is that the North American boreal forest has at least four wildfire characteristics that are important in understanding the dynamics of its plant populations: the large size of the burns with respect to dispersal distances; the short recurrence time of fire with respect to tree lifespans; the high mortality of plants due to the predominance of crown fires; and a good germination surface due to the large area of...

This book provides the first comprehensive review of the available information on the ecology of recently-deglaciated terrain and critically evaluates the methodology currently employed in such studies. The theme developed is that the ecology of these regions can only be fully understood by giving due consideration to the role and interaction of both physical and biological processes in the development of the landscape. By adopting this geoecological approach, the spatial variation and dynamics of vegetation and soils is considered in relation to other aspects of the landscape such as...

The mechanisms of macroevolutionary change are a contentious issue. Paleoecological evidence, presented in this book, shows that evolutionary processes visible in ecological time cannot be used to predict macroevolutionary trends, contrary to Darwin's original thesis. The author discusses how climatic oscillations on ice-age timescales are paced by variations in the Earth's orbit, and have thus been a permanent feature of Earth history. There is, however, little evidence for macroevolutionary change in response to these climatic changes, suggesting that over geological time, macroevolution...

These two books represent a synthesis and critical evaluation of studies conducted on bird communities, or sets of bird species that occur together. Drawing from studies conducted throughout the world, they review in detail what is known about the patterns of organization of such communities and the factors, such as competition, predation, past history, climate, habitat or disturbance that may determine these patterns. In Volume 1, the author considers why the avian community ecologists ask the questions they do, and how they have proceeded to answer them. The questions have generally...

The two volumes of John Wiens' Ecology of Bird Communities have applications and importance to the whole field of ecology. The books contain a detailed synthesis of our current understanding of the patterns of organisation of bird communities and of the factors that may determine them, drawing from studies from all over the world. By emphasizing how proper logic and methods have or have not been followed and how different viewpoints have developed historically and have led to controversy, the scope of these books are extended far beyond the study of birds. Processes and Variations discusses...