Multitrophic Level Interactions

The multitrophic level approach to ecology addresses the complexity of food webs much more realistically than the traditional focus on simple systems and interactions. Only in the last twenty years have ecologists become interested in the nature of more complex systems including tritrophic interactions between plants, herbivores, and natural enemies. These interactions are explored in this exciting new volume by expert researchers from a variety of ecological fields. This book provides a much-needed synthesis of multitrophic level interactions and serves as a guide for future research for ecologists of all descriptions.

Teja Tscharntke is Professor of Agroecology at the University of Göttingen, Germany. His research focus is on plant-herbivore-enemy interactions including parasitism, predation and pollination, insect communities and food webs on a landscape scale and temperate-tropical comparisons. He is editor-in-chief of Basic and Applied Ecology and a member of the editorial board of Oecologia.

Bradford A. Hawkins is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. His research focus is on the biology and ecology of insect parasitoids, insect community ecology, food webs and energy-diversity theory. He is the author of Pattern and Process in Host-Parasitoid Interactions (Cambridge University Press, 1994), and editor of Parasitoid Community Ecology (1994, with William Sheenan) and Theoretical Approaches to Biological Control (Cambridge University Press, 1999, with Howard V. Cornell).