Community ecology: is it time to move on? (An American Society of Naturalists presidential address).
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.
Simberloff
Daniel
D
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA. dsimberloff@utk.edu
D000818:Animals; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012106:Research / Q000639:trends; D012924:Social Conditions