Highlighting achievements of the past and challenges of the future, this volume presents the most important ecological issues. Major topics are addressed in evolution and population biology; functional and community ecology; the ecology of changing environments; and the ecology of ecosystems, management and human impacts. Key aspects of contemporary ecology and its interfaces with related disciplines, such as genetics and economics, are also considered.

Major researchers in the field present overviews of current thinking about the form and determinants of macroecological patterns. Each section presents different viewpoints on the answer to a key question in macroecology: Why are most species rare and small-bodied, and restricted in their distribution?

This volume advances understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes in a common frame of reference--that of space. Relevant processes operating at the scale of the population, metapopulation, and the geographical range are accordingly examined. Although this study's focus is largely on plants, questions addressed are equally applicable to animals.

Issues currently affecting the Arctic's environment are highlighted in this important review. After providing a background on the soils and periglacial processes of the Arctic, and the role of microbial and plant communities in ecosystem function, subsequent chapters consider the relationship between individual Arctic species and their environment, particularly in the context of climate and ecosystems. The book concludes with chapters concentrating on man's impacts on the Arctic environment.

Multitrophic interactions are now recognized as being very important in understanding the complexity of the natural world. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach to complex interactions across many trophic levels, and includes authors from disciplines as diverse as mycology, entomology, hematology, and population and theoretical ecology. Direct and indirect interactions between organisms from different trophic levels are emphasized.

Over the last 25 years ecology has emerged from being a predominantly descriptive subject to one with a more substantial theoretical framework underpinned by evidence from experiments. In this advance, improved technology had undoubtedly played a most significant role; few ecologists could operate without a computer to hand and many branches of the subject require very sophisticated instrumentation. This period has also been seen much greater precision in the formation of hypothesis, a more general search for mechanisms, increasing integration with other disciplines and increasing demands for...

Tropical communities are recognized as among the most species-rich and dynamic in the world. Yet, far from existing as dynamic equilibria, large unpredictable disruptive events dominate the longer-term dynamics set against the background of global change. This volume challenges the dynamic equilibrium idea further by arguing for thinking on a timescale of decades to centuries, finding new ways to handle unpredictability and uniqueness, and evaluating species diversity and community change at different scales.