Dynamic Food Webs

Dynamic Food Webs PDF Author: Peter C de Ruiter
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080460941
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 616

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dynamic Food Webs challenges us to rethink what factors may determine ecological and evolutionary pathways of food web development. It touches upon the intriguing idea that trophic interactions drive patterns and dynamics at different levels of biological organization: dynamics in species composition, dynamics in population life-history parameters and abundances, and dynamics in individual growth, size and behavior. These dynamics are shown to be strongly interrelated governing food web structure and stability and the role of populations and communities play in ecosystem functioning. Dynamic Food Webs not only offers over 100 illustrations, but also contains 8 riveting sections devoted to an understanding of how to manage the effects of environmental change, the protection of biological diversity and the sustainable use of natural resources. Dynamic Food Webs is a volume in the Theoretical Ecology series. - Relates dynamics on different levels of biological organization: individuals, populations, and communities - Deals with empirical and theoretical approaches - Discusses the role of community food webs in ecosystem functioning - Proposes methods to assess the effects of environmental change on the structure of biological communities and ecosystem functioning - Offers an analyses of the relationship between complexity and stability in food webs

Food Webs and Biodiversity

Food Webs and Biodiversity PDF Author: Axel G. Rossberg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118502175
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Get Book Here

Book Description
Food webs have now been addressed in empirical and theoretical research for more than 50 years. Yet, even elementary foundational issues are still hotly debated. One difficulty is that a multitude of processes need to be taken into account to understand the patterns found empirically in the structure of food webs and communities. Food Webs and Biodiversity develops a fresh, comprehensive perspective on food webs. Mechanistic explanations for several known macroecological patterns are derived from a few fundamental concepts, which are quantitatively linked to field-observables. An argument is developed that food webs will often be the key to understanding patterns of biodiversity at community level. Key Features: Predicts generic characteristics of ecological communities in invasion-extirpation equilibrium. Generalizes the theory of competition to food webs with arbitrary topologies. Presents a new, testable quantitative theory for the mechanisms determining species richness in food webs, and other new results. Written by an internationally respected expert in the field. With global warming and other pressures on ecosystems rising, understanding and protecting biodiversity is a cause of international concern. This highly topical book will be of interest to a wide ranging audience, including not only graduate students and practitioners in community and conservation ecology but also the complex-systems research community as well as mathematicians and physicists interested in the theory of networks. "This is a comprehensive work outlining a large array of very novel and potentially game-changing ideas in food web ecology." —Ken Haste Andersen, Technical University of Denmark "I believe that this will be a landmark book in community ecology ... it presents a well-established and consistent mathematical theory of food-webs. It is testable in many ways and the author finds remarkable agreements between predictions and reality." —Géza Meszéna, Eötvös University, Budapest

Dynamic Food Webs

Dynamic Food Webs PDF Author: Peter C de Ruiter
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080460941
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 616

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dynamic Food Webs challenges us to rethink what factors may determine ecological and evolutionary pathways of food web development. It touches upon the intriguing idea that trophic interactions drive patterns and dynamics at different levels of biological organization: dynamics in species composition, dynamics in population life-history parameters and abundances, and dynamics in individual growth, size and behavior. These dynamics are shown to be strongly interrelated governing food web structure and stability and the role of populations and communities play in ecosystem functioning. Dynamic Food Webs not only offers over 100 illustrations, but also contains 8 riveting sections devoted to an understanding of how to manage the effects of environmental change, the protection of biological diversity and the sustainable use of natural resources. Dynamic Food Webs is a volume in the Theoretical Ecology series. - Relates dynamics on different levels of biological organization: individuals, populations, and communities - Deals with empirical and theoretical approaches - Discusses the role of community food webs in ecosystem functioning - Proposes methods to assess the effects of environmental change on the structure of biological communities and ecosystem functioning - Offers an analyses of the relationship between complexity and stability in food webs

Ecological Networks

Ecological Networks PDF Author: Mercedes Pascual
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195188165
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Get Book Here

Book Description
Food webs are one of the most useful, and challenging, objects of study in ecology. These networks of predator-prey interactions, conjured in Darwin's image of a "tangled bank," provide a paradigmatic example of complex adaptive systems. This book is based on a February 2004 Santa Fe Institute workshop. Its authors treat the ecology of predator-prey interactions, food web theory, structure and dynamics. The book explores the boundaries of what is known of the relationship between structure and dynamics in ecological networks and will define directions for future developments in this field.

Successes, Limitations, and Frontiers in Ecosystem Science

Successes, Limitations, and Frontiers in Ecosystem Science PDF Author: Michael L. Pace
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461217245
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 515

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ecosystem research has emerged in recent decades as a vital, successful, and sometimes controversial approach to environmental science. This book emphasizes the idea that much of the progress in ecosystem research has been driven by the emergence of new environmental problems that could not be addressed by existing approaches. By focusing on successes and limitations of ecosystems studies, the book explores avenues for future ecosystem-level research.

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning PDF Author: Michel Loreau
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198515715
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Get Book Here

Book Description
Increasing domination of ecosystems by humans is steadily transforming them into depauperate systems. How will this loss of biodiversity affect the functioning and stability of natural and managed ecosystems? This work provides comprehensive coverage of empirical and theoretical research.

Food Webs

Food Webs PDF Author: John C. Moore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107182115
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 445

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents new approaches to studying food webs, using practical and policy examples to demonstrate the theory behind ecosystem management decisions.

Aquatic Food Webs

Aquatic Food Webs PDF Author: Andrea Belgrano
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198564821
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Aquatic Food Webs' provides a current synthesis of theoretical and empirical food web research. The textbook is suitable for graduate level students as well as professional researchers in community, ecosystem, and theoretical ecology, in aquatic ecology, and in conservation biology.

Competition and Coexistence

Competition and Coexistence PDF Author: Ulrich Sommer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642561667
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
The question "Why are there so many species?" has puzzled ecologist for a long time. Initially, an academic question, it has gained practical interest by the recent awareness of global biodiversity loss. Species diversity in local ecosystems has always been discussed in relation to the problem of competi tive exclusion and the apparent contradiction between the competitive exclu sion principle and the overwhelming richness of species found in nature. Competition as a mechanism structuring ecological communities has never been uncontroversial. Not only its importance but even its existence have been debated. On the one extreme, some ecologists have taken competi tion for granted and have used it as an explanation by default if the distribu tion of a species was more restricted than could be explained by physiology and dispersal history. For decades, competition has been a core mechanism behind popular concepts like ecological niche, succession, limiting similarity, and character displacement, among others. For some, competition has almost become synonymous with the Darwinian "struggle for existence", although simple plausibility should tell us that organisms have to struggle against much more than competitors, e.g. predators, parasites, pathogens, and envi ronmental harshness.

The Functional Consequences of Biodiversity

The Functional Consequences of Biodiversity PDF Author: Ann P. Kinzig
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691088225
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 393

Get Book Here

Book Description
Does biodiversity influence how ecosystems function? Might diversity loss affect the ability of ecosystems to deliver services of benefit to humankind? Ecosystems provide food, fuel, fiber, and drinkable water, regulate local and regional climate, and recycle needed nutrients, among other things. An ecosyste's ability to sustain functioning may depend on the number of species residing in the ecosystem--its biological diversity--but this has been a controversial hypothesis. There are many unanswered questions about how and why changes in biodiversity could alter ecosystem functioning. This volume, written by top researchers, synthesizes empirical studies on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and extends that knowledge using a novel and coordinated set of models and theoretical approaches. These experimental and theoretical analyses demonstrate that functioning usually increases with biodiversity, but also reveals when and under what circumstances other relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning might occur. It also accounts for apparent changes in diversity-functioning relationships that emerge over time in disturbed ecosystems, thereby addressing a major controversy in the field. The volume concludes with a blueprint for moving beyond small-scale studies to regional ones--a move of enormous significance for policy and conservation but one that will entail tackling some of the most fundamental challenges in ecology. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Juan Armesto, Claudia Neuhauser, Andy Hector, Clarence Lehman, Peter Kareiva, Sharon Lawler, Peter Chesson, Teri Balser, Mary K. Firestone, Robert Holt, Michel Loreau, Johannes Knops, David Wedin, Peter Reich, Shahid Naeem, Bernhard Schmid, Jasmin Joshi, and Felix Schläpfer.

Insects and Ecosystem Function

Insects and Ecosystem Function PDF Author: W.W. Weisser
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 354074004X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

Get Book Here

Book Description
Insects are a dominant component of biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems and play a key role in mediating the relationship between plants and ecosystem processes. This volume examines their effects on ecosystem functioning, focusing mainly, but not exclusively, on herbivorous insects. Renowned authors with extensive experience in the field of plant-insect interactions, contribute to the volume using examples from their own work.