Food Web - Softcover

Stuart L. Pimm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0412231107 ISBN 13: 9780412231100

Publisher: Chapman & Hall, 1982

Synopsis

Often the meanings of words are changed subtly for interesting reasons. The implication of the word 'community' has changed from including all the organisms in an area to only those species at a particular trophic level (and often a taxonomically restricted group), for example, 'bird-community'. If this observation is correct, its probable cause is the dramatic growth in our knowledge of the ecological patterns along trophic levels (I call these horizontal patterns) and the processes that generate them. This book deals with vertical patterns - those across trophic levels -and tries to compensate for their relative neglect. In cataloging a dozen vertical patterns I hope to convince the reader that species interactions across trophic levels are as patterned as those along trophic levels and demand explanations equally forcefully. But this is not the only objective. A limited number of processes shape the patterns of species interaction; to demonstrate their existence is an essential step in understanding why ecosystems are the way they are. To achieve these aims I must resort to both mathematical techniques to develop theories and statistical techniques to decide between rival hypotheses. The level of mathematics is likely to offend nearly everyone. Some will find any mathematics too much, while others will consider the material to be old, familiar ground and probably explained with a poor regard for rigour and generality.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Although it was first published twenty years ago, Stuart Pimm's Food Weds remains the clearest introduction yet to the study of food webs, diagrams depicting which species interact-in other words, who eats whom. Reviewing various empirical evidence, Pimm shows that even the most complex food webs follow certain patterns, and that those patterns are shaped by a limited number of biological processes—processes he provides mathematical tools for unraveling (and conrete examples of those tools' application). This edition adds a new foreword covering recent developments in the study of food webs and demonstrating their continuing importance to conservation biology, particularly attemts to predict which communities are most culnerable to disturbance.

About the Author:

Stuart L. Pimm is a professor of ecology in the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation at Columbia University. He is the author of The World According to Pimm: A Scientist Audits the Earth and The Balance of Nature? Ecological Issues in the Conservation of Species and Communities, the latter oublished by the University of Chicago Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chapman & Hall
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0412231107
• ISBN 13: 9780412231100
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 219