Ebook: Dynamics of Nutrient Cycling and Food Webs
Author: D. L. DeAngelis (auth.)
- Tags: Evolutionary Biology, Ecology
- Series: Population and Community Biology Series 9
- Year: 1992
- Publisher: Springer Netherlands
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- pdf
In all fields of science today, data are collected and theories are developed and published faster than scientists can keep up with, let alone thoroughly digest. In ecology the fact that practitioners tend to be divided between such subdisciplines as aquatic and terrestrial ecology, as well as between popula tion, community, and ecosystem ecology, makes it even harder for them to keep up with all relevant research. Ecologists specializing in one sub discipline are not always aware of progress in another subdiscipline that relates to their own. Syntheses are frequently needed that pull together large bodies of information and organize them in ways that makes them more coherent, and thus more understandable. I have tried to perform this task of integration for the subject area that encompasses the interrelationships between the dynamics of ecological food webs and the cycling of nutrients. I believe this area cuts across many of the subdisciplines of ecology and is pivotal to our progress in understanding ecosystems and in dealing with human impacts on the environment. Many current ecological problems involve human disturbances of both food webs and the nutrients that cycle through them. Little progress can be made towards elucidating the complex feedback relations inherent in the study of nutrient cycles in ecological systems without the tools of mathematics and computer modelling. These tools are therefore liberally used throughout the book.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xv
Introduction....Pages 1-16
General concepts of nutrient flux and stability....Pages 17-37
Nutrients and autotrophs....Pages 38-62
Nutrients and autotrophs: variable internal nutrient levels....Pages 63-80
Effects of nutrients on autotroph-herbivore interactions....Pages 81-107
Herbivores and nutrient recycling....Pages 108-122
Nutrient interactions of detritus and decomposers....Pages 123-141
Nutrient limitation and food webs....Pages 142-163
Competition and nutrients....Pages 164-185
Temporally varying driving forces and nutrient-limited food webs....Pages 186-208
Effects of spatial extent....Pages 209-225
Implications for global change....Pages 226-236
Back Matter....Pages 237-270
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xv
Introduction....Pages 1-16
General concepts of nutrient flux and stability....Pages 17-37
Nutrients and autotrophs....Pages 38-62
Nutrients and autotrophs: variable internal nutrient levels....Pages 63-80
Effects of nutrients on autotroph-herbivore interactions....Pages 81-107
Herbivores and nutrient recycling....Pages 108-122
Nutrient interactions of detritus and decomposers....Pages 123-141
Nutrient limitation and food webs....Pages 142-163
Competition and nutrients....Pages 164-185
Temporally varying driving forces and nutrient-limited food webs....Pages 186-208
Effects of spatial extent....Pages 209-225
Implications for global change....Pages 226-236
Back Matter....Pages 237-270
....