The Experts below are selected from a list of 58572 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Brian J. Mcgill - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Community Ecology
2019Co-Authors: Gary G. Mittelbach, Brian J. McgillAbstract: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.
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Community Ecology - Patterns of biological diversity
Community Ecology, 2019Co-Authors: Gary G. Mittelbach, Brian J. McgillAbstract:This chapter examines how biodiversity, the variety of life, is distributed across the globe and within local communities. It begins by considering some of the challenges associated with assessing biological diversity at different spatial scales. Then, three of the best-studied patterns in species richness are examined in detail—the species–area relationship, the distribution of species abundances, and the relationship between productivity and species richness. The chapter concludes with a detailed exploration of the most dramatic of Earth’s biodiversity patterns—the latitudinal diversity gradient. The above patterns constitute much of what Community Ecology seeks to explain about nature. Their study provides a foundation from which to explore mechanisms of species interactions, and to understand the processes that drive variation in species numbers and their distribution.
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Community Ecology - Community Ecology’s roots
Community Ecology, 2019Co-Authors: Gary G. Mittelbach, Brian J. McgillAbstract:This chapter introduces the field of Community Ecology and reviews its history. The first Community ecologists were botanists who noted what appeared to be repeated associations between plant species along environmental gradients. From these studies arose the concept of ecological succession. Laboratory and field studies of animal populations generated the important concepts of density-dependence, the competitive exclusion principle, and the ecological niche. The idea that interspecific competition limited the membership of communities to certain kinds of species produced the historically important theory of limiting similarity, which specified how different species must be in their niche in order to coexist. This theory appeared to provide a framework for predicting both the number and types of species found in natural communities, however, it failed to deliver on its promise. The failure of simple competition-based models to explain Community diversity led to important new directions that continue to influence how ecologists study communities today.
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the return of the variance intraspecific variability in Community Ecology
Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 2012Co-Authors: Brian J. Mcgill, Brian J Enquist, Cyrille Violle, Lin Jiang, Cecile H Albert, Catherine M Hulshof, Vincent JungAbstract:Despite being recognized as a promoter of diversity and a condition for local coexistence decades ago, the importance of intraspecific variance has been neglected over time in Community Ecology. Recently, there has been a new emphasis on intraspecific variability. Indeed, recent developments in trait-based Community Ecology have underlined the need to integrate variation at both the intraspecific as well as interspecific level. We introduce new T-statistics ('T' for trait), based on the comparison of intraspecific and interspecific variances of functional traits across organizational levels, to operationally incorporate intraspecific variability into Community Ecology theory. We show that a focus on the distribution of traits at local and regional scales combined with original analytical tools can provide unique insights into the primary forces structuring communities.
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rebuilding Community Ecology from functional traits
Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 2006Co-Authors: Brian J. Mcgill, Brian J Enquist, Evan Weiher, Mark WestobyAbstract:There is considerable debate about whether Community Ecology will ever produce general principles. We suggest here that this can be achieved but that Community Ecology has lost its way by focusing on pairwise species interactions independent of the environment. We assert that Community Ecology should return to an emphasis on four themes that are tied together by a two-step process: how the fundamental niche is governed by functional traits within the context of abiotic environmental gradients; and how the interaction between traits and fundamental niches maps onto the realized niche in the context of a biotic interaction milieu. We suggest this approach can create a more quantitative and predictive science that can more readily address issues of global change.
Daniel Simberloff - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Community Ecology: is it time to move on? (An American Society of Naturalists presidential address).
The American naturalist, 2004Co-Authors: Daniel SimberloffAbstract:Abstract: Because of the contingency and complexity of its subject matter, Community Ecology has few general laws. Laws and models in Community Ecology are highly contingent, and their domain is usually very local. This fact does not mean that Community Ecology is a weak science; in fact, it is the locus of exciting advances, with growing mechanistic understanding of causes, patterns, and processes. Further, traditional Community ecological research, often local, experimental, and reductionist, is crucial in understanding and responding to many environmental problems, including those posed by global changes. For both scientific and societal reasons, it is not time to abandon Community Ecology.
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Community Ecology is it time to move on an american society of naturalists presidential address
The American Naturalist, 2004Co-Authors: Daniel SimberloffAbstract:Abstract: Because of the contingency and complexity of its subject matter, Community Ecology has few general laws. Laws and models in Community Ecology are highly contingent, and their domain is usually very local. This fact does not mean that Community Ecology is a weak science; in fact, it is the locus of exciting advances, with growing mechanistic understanding of causes, patterns, and processes. Further, traditional Community ecological research, often local, experimental, and reductionist, is crucial in understanding and responding to many environmental problems, including those posed by global changes. For both scientific and societal reasons, it is not time to abandon Community Ecology.
Andy Fenton - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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why infectious disease research needs Community Ecology
Science, 2015Co-Authors: Pieter T J Johnson, Jacobus C De Roode, Andy FentonAbstract:Infectious diseases often emerge from interactions among multiple species and across nested levels of biological organization. Threats as diverse as Ebola virus, human malaria, and bat white-nose syndrome illustrate the need for a mechanistic understanding of the ecological interactions underlying emerging infections. We describe how recent advances in Community Ecology can be adopted to address contemporary challenges in disease research. These analytical tools can identify the factors governing complex assemblages of multiple hosts, parasites, and vectors, and reveal how processes link across scales from individual hosts to regions. They can also determine the drivers of heterogeneities among individuals, species, and regions to aid targeting of control strategies. We provide examples where these principles have enhanced disease management and illustrate how they can be further extended.
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emphasizing the Ecology in parasite Community Ecology
Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 2007Co-Authors: Amy B Pedersen, Andy FentonAbstract:In natural systems, individuals are often co-infected by many species of parasites. However, the significance of interactions between species and the processes that shape within-host parasite communities remain unclear. Studies of parasite Community Ecology are often descriptive, focusing on patterns of parasite abundance across host populations rather than on the mechanisms that underlie interactions within a host. These within-host interactions are crucial for determining the fitness and transmissibility of co-infecting parasite species. Here, we highlight how techniques from Community Ecology can be used to restructure the approaches used to study parasite communities. We discuss insights offered by this mechanistic approach that will be crucial for predicting the impact on wildlife and human health of disease control measures, climate change or novel parasite species introductions.
Yves Bertheau - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Use of Phylogenetic Diversity in Conservation Biology and Community Ecology: A Common Base but Different Approaches
The Quarterly Review of Biology, 2019Co-Authors: Simon Veron, Victor S. Saito, Nélida Padilla-garcía, Félix Forest, Yves BertheauAbstract:AbstractThe use of phylogenetic tools and studies has strongly increased in the last two decades especially in conservation biology and Community Ecology. Phylogenetic trees are essential to unders...
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The use of phylogenetic diversity in conservation biology and Community Ecology: A common base but different approaches
Quarterly Review of Biology, 2019Co-Authors: Simon Veron, Nélida Padilla-garcía, Félix Forest, Victor Saito, Yves BertheauAbstract:The use of phylogenetic tools and studies has strongly increased in the last two decades especially in conservation biology and Community Ecology. Phylogenetic trees are essential to understand the processes of Community or network assembly, to identify centers of diversification, and to help protect Earth’s evolutionary heritage. Despite two decades of research and syntheses, there are still many discussions on how phylogenetic diversity (PD) methods should be effectively applied to those fields. In particular, conservation approaches based on PD have become similar to these used in Community Ecology. Thus, the main benefit of using PD calculations in conservation biology may have been ignored or misinterpreted. Our goal is to discuss and provide guidelines to the use of PD in biodiversity conservation so that its benefits are not hidden or lost in the approaches employed. We also aim that benefits and uses are better recognized and more easily understood by researchers or practitioners who would like to include PD in their studies and conservation planning
Pairot Pramual - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Trait-based and phylogenetic Community Ecology of black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) in tropical streams of Thailand
Hydrobiologia, 2015Co-Authors: Sirinapa Pangjanda, Pairot PramualAbstract:A primary aim of Community Ecology is to determine mechanisms that shape Community structure. In this study, we used trait-based and phylogenetic Community Ecology approaches to determine the factors underlying the species assemblage of black fly larvae in tropical streams of Thailand. Ecological data were obtained from 150 collections. Morphological traits were measured from 35 species. The phylogenetic relationship of these species was inferred from cytochrome c oxidase I, II, and 18S rRNA/ITS1 sequences. Phylogeny-based Community analyses indicated that species in the Community did not skew toward phylogenetic clustering or overdispersion. However, the trait-based Community structure analysis based on labral fan morphology revealed that species in most (>78%) communities were more similar morphologically than expected by chance. As labral fan morphology is strongly related to habitat exploitation, it is considered that habitat filtering is a major factor shaping Community structure of black fly larvae in tropical streams of Thailand.