Community Ecology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary G. Mittelbach ◽  
Brian J. McGill
Keyword(s):  
Community Ecology ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Neutral Theory ◽  
Local Area ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Ecological Concepts ◽  
Art Community ◽  
Metacommunity Dynamics ◽  
New Generation

Community Ecology provides a broad, up-to-date coverage of ecological concepts at the community level and is suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and ecological researchers. The field of community ecology has undergone a transformation in recent years, from a discipline largely focused on processes occurring within a local area to a discipline encompassing a much richer domain of study, including the linkages between communities separated in space (metacommunity dynamics), niche and neutral theory, the interplay between ecology and evolution (eco-evolutionary dynamics), and the influence of historical and regional processes in shaping patterns of biodiversity. To fully understand these new developments, however, students continue to need a strong foundation in the study of species interactions, and how these interactions are assembled into community modules and ecological networks. Trait-based assembly rules are presented as another approach to understanding community assembly, especially for real-world communities that may contain hundreds of species. This new edition fulfils the book’s original aims, both as a much-needed up-to-date and accessible introduction to modern community ecology, and in identifying the important questions that are yet to be answered. This research-driven textbook introduces state-of-the-art community ecology to a new generation of students, adopting reasoned and balanced perspectives on as-yet-unresolved issues. Pictures and graphics throughout the text allow students to visualize advanced concepts.

Evolutionary Community Ecology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. McPeek
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Community Ecology ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Species Interaction ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Quaternary Period ◽  
Biological Communities

This book develops a unified framework for understanding the structure of ecological community and the dynamics of natural selection that shape the evolution of the species inhabiting them. All species engage in interactions with many other species, and these interactions regulate their abundance, define their trajectories of natural selection, and shape their movement decisions. This book synthesizes the ecological and evolutionary dynamics generated by species interactions that structure local biological communities and regional metacommunities. The book explores the ecological performance characteristics needed for invasibility and coexistence of species in complex networks of species interactions. This species interaction framework is then extended to examine the ecological dynamics of natural selection that drive coevolution of interacting species in these complex interaction networks. The models of natural selection resulting from species interactions are used to evaluate the ecological conditions that foster diversification at multiple trophic levels. Analyses show that diversification depends on the ecological context in which species interactions occur and the types of traits that define the mechanisms of those species interactions. Lastly, looking at the mechanisms of speciation that affect species richness and diversity at various spatial scales and the consequences of past climate change over the Quaternary period, the book considers how metacommunity structure is shaped at regional and biogeographic scales. Integrating evolutionary theory into the study of community ecology, the book provides a new framework for predicting how communities are organized and how they may change over time.

Evolutionary community ecology

2019 ◽  
pp. 307-333
Author(s):  
Gary G. Mittelbach ◽  
Brian J. McGill
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Community Ecology ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Ecological Interactions ◽  
Predator Prey ◽  
Evolutionary Rescue ◽  
Species Pools ◽  
Laboratory Populations ◽  
Long Time

Ecology and evolution go hand in hand. However, since evolution occurs over relatively long time scales, ecologists had long thought it unlikely that evolutionary events could affect population dynamics or species interactions in ecological time. This view is changing. Today, there are multiple areas of research examining how evolutionary processes feedback directly on ecology. For example, eco-evolutionary dynamics focus on the cyclical interaction between ecology and adaptive evolution, such that changes in ecological interactions drive selection on organismal traits that, in turn, alter the outcome of ecological interactions. Striking examples of eco-evolutionary feedbacks are found in predator–prey interactions of laboratory populations. However, less is known about eco-evolutionary feedbacks in nature. Evolutionary rescue describes a process whereby rapid adaptation may prevent extinction in a changing environment. Other topics covered in this chapter are community phylogenetics and the evolution of regional species pools.

scholarly journals The importance of species interactions in eco-evolutionary community dynamics under climate change

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Åkesson ◽  
Alva Curtsdotter ◽  
Anna Eklöf ◽  
Bo Ebenman ◽  
Jon Norberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Community Dynamics ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Temperature Dependent ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
The Impact

AbstractEco-evolutionary dynamics are essential in shaping the biological response of communities to ongoing climate change. Here we develop a spatially explicit eco-evolutionary framework which features more detailed species interactions, integrating evolution and dispersal. We include species interactions within and between trophic levels, and additionally, we incorporate the feature that species’ interspecific competition might change due to increasing temperatures and affect the impact of climate change on ecological communities. Our modeling framework captures previously reported ecological responses to climate change, and also reveals two key results. First, interactions between trophic levels as well as temperature-dependent competition within a trophic level mitigate the negative impact of climate change on biodiversity, emphasizing the importance of understanding biotic interactions in shaping climate change impact. Second, our trait-based perspective reveals a strong positive relationship between the within-community variation in preferred temperatures and the capacity to respond to climate change. Temperature-dependent competition consistently results both in higher trait variation and more responsive communities to altered climatic conditions. Our study demonstrates the importance of species interactions in an eco-evolutionary setting, further expanding our knowledge of the interplay between ecological and evolutionary processes.

History and Theory in Anthropology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Barnard
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The Past ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Post Colonialism ◽  
New Generation ◽  
History And Theory

In the past twenty years, there have been exciting new developments in the field of anthropology. This second edition of Barnard's classic textbook on the history and theory of anthropology has been revised and expanded to include up-to-date coverage on all the most important topics in the field. Its coverage ranges from traditional topics like the beginnings of the subject, evolutionism, functionalism, structuralism, and Marxism, to ideas about globalization, post-colonialism, and notions of 'race' and of being 'indigenous'. There are several new chapters, along with an extensive glossary, index, dates of birth and death, and award-winning diagrams. Although anthropology is often dominated by trends in Europe and North America, this edition makes plain the contributions of trendsetters in the rest of the world too. With its comprehensive yet clear coverage of concepts, this is essential reading for a new generation of anthropology students.

Metacommunities

2019 ◽  
pp. 266-284
Author(s):  
Gary G. Mittelbach ◽  
Brian J. McGill
Keyword(s):  
Species Diversity ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Neutral Theory ◽  
Patch Dynamics ◽  
Species Traits ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The Other ◽  
Species Sorting ◽  
Niche Differences ◽  
Dynamics Of Populations

Just as the dispersal of individuals may link the dynamics of populations in space, the dispersal of species among communities may link local communities into a metacommunity. Four different perspectives characterize how dispersal rates, environmental heterogeneity, and species traits interact to influence diversity in metacommunities. These perspectives are: patch dynamics, species sorting, mass effects, and the neutral perspective. The neutral perspective stands in stark contrast to the other three perspectives in that it assumes that niche differences between species are unimportant and that species are demographically identical in terms of their birth, death, and dispersal rates. Under the neutral perspective, species diversity is maintained by a balance between speciation, extinction, and dispersal. Although neutral theory is incompatible with realistic modes and rates of speciation, it has been enormously influential in focusing our attention on the linkages between species interactions on local scales, and evolutionary and biogeographic processes occurring on large scales.

Answers.

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-214
Author(s):  
Paul A. Rees
Keyword(s):  
Community Ecology ◽  
Population Ecology ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Multiple Choice ◽  
Ecological Genetics ◽  
Major Topic ◽  
Production Ecology ◽  
Material Cycles ◽  
Ecological Methods

Abstract A multiple choice question has a stem (the 'question'), a key (the 'answer') and a number of distracters (wrong answers intended to distract the student from the key). This part of the book contains the key to each question along with a brief explanation of why this is correct and, in some cases, what the distracters mean. The questions are grouped into 10 major topic areas: (1) The history and foundations of ecology, (2) Abiotic factors and environmental monitoring, (3) Taxonomy and biodiversity, (4) Energy flow and production ecology, (5) Nutrient and material cycles, (6) Ecophysiology, (7) Population ecology, (8) Community ecology and species interactions, (9) Ecological genetics and evolution, (10) Ecological methods and statistics.

Switch monitoring-The new generation of monitoring for local area networks

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 42-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Romascanu ◽  
Itai E. Zilbershtein
Keyword(s):  
Local Area Networks ◽  
Local Area ◽  
New Generation

scholarly journals ONCE AGAIN ABOUT THE BIOTIC COMMUNITY

ÈKOBIOTEH ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-477
Author(s):  
G.S. Rozenberg ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Population Genetics ◽  
Community Ecology ◽  
Neutral Theory ◽  
Patch Dynamics ◽  
Species Structure ◽  
Biotic Community ◽  
Temporal Aspect

Community ecology studies the patterns of changes in biodiversity, species structure, and the number of individual populations in a spatial and temporal aspect. The article discusses some modern theories of community ecology (neutral theory, patch dynamics, M. Vellend's ideas about four basic processes in communities similar to processes of population genetics [selection, drift, dispersal, selection], etc.).

scholarly journals Implications of Two Opposing Variations of Neutral Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-52
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bartlett
Keyword(s):  
Prior Information ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Neutral Theory ◽  
Neutral Evolution ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
The Difference

This letter discusses the difference between neutral theory as an observation of present evolutionary dynamics compared to neutral theory as a more-or-less comprehensive theory of evolution.  The letter suggests that prior information, not neutral evolution itself, creates the patterns in the genome in ways that make the dynamics described by neutral theory possible in modern organisms.

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