Community Ecology : Pattern and Process

Organized research, complex data analysis, community metabolism studies and new techniques of environmental measurement have all contributed to the considerable advances in methods of community ecology made over the last twenty-five years. In this stimulating text, Professor Kikkawa and Professor Anderson have assembled a truly international team of authors, each a leading authority in their specialist field, to take a fresh and critical look at major patterns and processes that must underlie all community organization. The volume is divided into five parts giving an historical perspective to the development of modern concepts necessary for the understanding of natural communities and covering such areas as limits of communities, community organization, ecological and evolutionary processes and other major approaches in community ecology. Clear and succinct reviews of literature, combined with fresh ideas and interpretations, make this a stimulating text for advanced courses in ecology.