This work is the first to focus systematically on a much-debated topic: the conceptual issues of community ecology, including the nature of evidence in ecology, the role of experiments, attempts to disprove hypotheses, and the value of negative evidence in the discipline.
Originally published in 1984.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Ecological Communities: Conceptual Issues and the Evidence
By Donald R. Strong Jr., Daniel Simberloff, Lawrence G. Abele, Anne B. ThistlePRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-08340-7Contents
Preface, vii,
Introduction, 3,
1. An Overview: Real and Apparent Patterns in Community Structure ROBERT M. MAY, 3,
Experimental Tests,
2. Inferences and Experimental Results in Guild Structure NELSON G HAIRSTON, SR, 19,
3. Exorcising the Ghost of Competition Past: Phytophagous Insects DONALD R. STRONG, JR., 28,
4. The Role of Competition in Spider Communities: Insights from Field Experiments with a Model Organism DAVID H. WISE, 42,
5. Does Competition Structure Communities? Field Studies on Neotropical Heliconia Insect Communities RICHARD P. SEIFERT, 54,
Biogeographic Evidence on Communities,
6. Non-competitive Populations, Non-convergent Communities, and Vacant Niches: The Herbivores of Bracken JOHN H LAWTON, 67,
7. Experimental Tests of Island Biogeographic Theory JORGE R REY, 101,
8. An Experimental Approach to Understanding Pattern in Natural Communities HENRY M. WILBUR and JOSEPH TRAVIS, 113,
9. Biogeography, Colonization and Experimental Community Structure of Coral-Associated Crustaceans LAWRENCE G ABELE, 123,
10. Assembly of Land Bird Communities on Northern Islands: A Quantitative Analysis of Insular Impoverishment OLLI JÄRVINEN AND YRJO HALLA, 138,
Marine Community Paradigms,
11. Paradigms, Explanations and Generalizations in Models for the Structure of Intertidal Communities on Rocky Shores A J UNDERWOOD and E J DENLEY, 151,
12. Processes Structuring Some Marine Communities: Are They General? PAUL K. DAYTON, 181,
Morphology, Species Combinations, and Coexistence,
13. Interspecific Competition Inferred from Patterns of Guild Structure PETER GRANT and DOLPH SCHLUTER, 201,
14. Properties of Coexisting Bird Species in Two Archipelagoes DANIEL SIMBERLOFF, 234,
15. Size Differences among Sympatric, Bird-eating Hawks: A Worldwide Survey THOMAS W. SCHOENER, 254,
16. Patterns and Processes in Three Guilds of Terrestrial Vertebrates JAMES H BROWN and MICHAEL A BOWERS, 282,
17. Are Species Co-occurrences on Islands Non-random, and Are Null Hypotheses Useful in Community Ecology? MICHAEL E GILPIN and JARED M DIAMOND, 297,
18. Neutral Models of Species' Co-occurrence Patterns EDWARD F CONNOR and DANIEL SIMBERLOFF, 316,
19. Rejoinders MICHAEL E GILPIN and JARED M DIAMOND EDWARD F CONNOR and DANIEL SIMBERLOFF, 332,
20. A Null Model for Null Models in Biogeography ROBERT K. COLWELL and DAVID W WINKLER, 344,
21. The Mechanisms of Species Interactions and Community Organization in Fish EARL E WERNER, 360,
22. Patterns of Flowering Phenologies: Testability and Causal Inference Using a Random Model BEVERLY J RATHCKE, 383,
Food Web Design,
23. Food Chains and Return Times STUART L PIMM, 397,
24. Stability, Probability, and the Topology of Food Webs MICHAEL J. AUERBACH, 413,
Community Changes in Time and Space,
25. On Understanding a Non-equilibrium World: Myth and Reality in Community Patterns and Processes JOHN A. WIENS, 439,
26. Interspecific Morphological Relationships and the Densities of Birds FRANCES C JAMES and WILLIAM J BOECKLEN, 458,
27. The Structure of Communities of Fish on Coral Reefs and the Merit of a Hypothesis-Testing, Manipulative Approach to Ecology PETER F. SALE, 478,
28. Density Compensation in Vertebrates and Invertebrates: A Review and an Experiment STANLEY H. FAETH, 491,
29. Communities of Specialists: Vacant Niches in Ecological and Evolutionary Time PETER W. PRICE, 510,
Literature Cited, 525,
Author Index, 585,
Taxonomic Index, 593,
Subject Index 603,
CHAPTER 1
An Overview: Real and Apparent Patterns in Community Structure
ROBERT M. MAY
Biology Department, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544
"Two noticeable characteristics of papers recently published are the widespread interest in field quantitative methods in the study of population density, rates of spread, fluctuation, reproduction, feeding, or mortality; and an increasing awareness of evolutionary dynamic problems such as selection and competition At the same time there is a general adoption and a tightening up of the statistical treatment of ecological data, which, though entirely sound and necessary, would become a partly bad feature if it tended to exclude the equally valuable type of observations on the pattern of nature, and the habitats and distribution of animals, that ecologists and naturalists can contribute." (Elton, 1947)
INTRODUCTION
In 1944, the British Ecological Society held a symposium on "The Ecology of Closely Allied Species," at which Lack, Elton, Varley, and others used various lines of evidence to argue that competition is a major factor in structuring plant and animal communities. Others argued to the contrary, with Diver contending that "the mathematical and experimental approaches had been dangerously oversimplified and omitted consideration of many factors [including] sources of energy and their relative availability, predator attack, mobility, population structure and growth, individual growth rate and bulk, relation of life cycle to annual cycle, range of tolerance, means of dispersal, and the like" (Anon., 1944). He concluded "there was little direct evidence that cohabitation or separation of related species was determined by space and food, since other factors usually kept populations below the point at which serious pressure was developed." Broadly similar themes dominated the celebrated Cold Spring Harbor Symposium in 1957, with some arguing that density-dependent effects arising from biological interactions are of predominant importance in setting population levels, while others argued the importance of the density-independent regulatory effects caused by the weather and other environmental factors. The Brookhaven Symposium of 1969 on "Diversity and Stability in Ecological Systems" again drew together many of the contemporary leaders of the subject; I think it gave a less polarized and more synthetic account of the issues, although (as the title itself suggests) there may have been too much of a tendency to view communities as orderly, patterned "systems." The present volume stems from a conference held at Wakulla Springs in 1981, and the same themes still interweave, albeit now greatly enriched by a rapidly expanding body of field observations, carefully planned experimental manipulations in the field and laboratory, and more rigorous techniques of statistical evaluation of the data. Whether these themes are drawing toward their resolution, or whether we are still in the opening passages of the work, is for the reader of this volume to decide.
An eager and naive pattern-seeker might note that these landmark meetings are regularly spaced, with a 12-year period, and might even go on to speculate on the underlying cause of this cycle (12 years is roughly the time from entering graduate school to the tenure decision?). This is silly. The "cycle" does, however, serve to illustrate one central concern of the Wakulla Springs Conference: given some apparent pattern in the organization of an ecological community, does it really derive from biological interactions among and within species? Or is it the sort of coincidence one often finds when the data are few? Or may the...
