Community Ecology: Processes, Models, and Applications

Community ecology is the study of the interactions between populations of co-existing species. Co-edited by two prominent community ecologists and featuring contributions from top researchers in the field, this book provides a survey of the state-of-the-art in both the theory and applications of the discipline. It pays special attention to topology, dynamics, and the importance of spatial and temporal scale while also looking at applications to emerging problems in human-dominated ecosystems (including the restoration and reconstruction of viable communities).

Community Ecology: Processes, Models, and Applications adopts a mainly theoretical approach and focuses on the use of network-based theory, which remains little explored in standard community ecology textbooks. The book includes discussion of the effects of biotic invasions on natural communities; the linking of ecological network structure to empirically measured community properties and dynamics; the effects of evolution on community patterns and processes; and the integration of fundamental interactions into ecological networks. A final chapter indicates future research directions for the discipline.

Herman Verhoef obtained his PhD at the Faculty of Biology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. After having been involved in the ecophysiology of soil animals, he has turned his attention to Community Ecology. He is a Professor of Soil Ecology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, focussing on soil-plant interactions and the relations between spatial heterogeneity and biodiversity.
Peter Morin obtained his PhD in Zoology from Duke University in Durham, NC, USA. He is a Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, & Natural Resources at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, USA. He is a community ecologist, and is interested in a number of topics, including biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, ecological networks, interactions between competition and predation, and microbial ecology.