United States
£ GBP
Important new edition of Keddy's excellent book, unfortunately issued at a prohibitive price. There are entirely new chapters, including one on resources and another on competition gradients in nature. The author freely ranges across all major taxonomic groups in search of evidence. Variants of competition such as intensity, asymmetry and hierarchies are singled out for particular attention. Using an array of historical examples, including Biblical conflicts, the use of noblemen's sons in the Crusades, the Viking raids in Europe, strategic bombing campaigns in the Second World War, and ethic battles of the Balkans, the book illustrates how most of the aspects of competition illustrated with animals and plants can be extended to the interactions of human beings and their societies.
Preface. Preface to Second Edition. Introduction. 1. Studying Competition. 2. Resources. 3. Competition in Action. 4. Choosing the Tools. 5. Competitive Hierarchies. 6. Traits and Competitive Performance. 7. Competition Gradients. 8. Extending the Generality of Field Experiments. 9. Modelling Competition. 10. Competition, Pragmatism and Comparison. 11. Goals and Obstacles in the Study of Competition. References. Index (needs to be edited).
Competition (2nd Edition) by Keddy provides an overview of past and current work on competition, and suggests promising directions for future research. The book includes many elements that should help accelerate the rate at which knowledge is gained in the field. It encourages the consideration of taxonomic groups belonging to all kingdoms, not only the study of charismatic mammal and bird species. Accordingly, Keddy provides examples of competition in a wide array of species, including interesting examples suggesting that today's human societies have been largely shaped by competitive interactions. Competition (2nd Edition) is more than a literature review; the book also highlights exciting new research areas, and suggests how to empirically approach these deserving themes. It constitutes an important contribution to the field by providing the means to enhance the value of future competition studies. Ecologists should benefit from reading the book because it provides tools to maximize the rate of knowledge acquisition per unit of research effort. (Daniel Fortin, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Ecoscience, 10:3 (2003) "This expanded and revised edition of Paul Keddy's well known book on competition includes many recent examples and new written chapters on competition gradients, competitive hierachies and resoureces with extended discussion of models and of evolutionary aspects of the subject. It contains examples to help explain the theories being discussed and there are numerous line drawings." (Review Editor Bulletin of the British Ecological Society, August 2003, 34:3)
