Ecological Assembly Rules Perspectives, Advances, Retreats

About this book

Brings together contributions which examine the question of the existence and nature of assembly rules with rigour and in some detail, using both theoretical and empirical approaches in a variety of systems. Encompasses a wide range of topics within ecology such as competition and coexistence, conservation and biodiversity, niche theory, and biogeography.

Contents

Introduction Paul A. Keddy and Evan Weiher; Part I. The Search for Meaningful Patterns in Species Assemblages: 1. The genesis and development of guild assembly rules Barry J. Fox; 2. Ruling out a community assembly rule: the method of favored states Daniel Simberloff, Lewi Stone and Tamar Dayan; 3. Community structure and assembly rules: confronting conceptual and statistical issues with data on desert rodents Douglas A. Kelt and James H. Brown; 4. Introduced avifaunas as natural experiments in community assembly Julie L. Lockwood, Michael Moulton and Karla L. Balent; 5. Assembly rules in plant communities J. Bastow Wilson; 6. Assembly rules at different scales in plant and bird communities Martin L. Cody; 7. Impact of language, history and choice of system on the study of assembly rules Barbara D. Booth and Douglas W. Larson; Part II. Other Perspectives on Community Assembly: 8. On the nature of the assembly trajectory James A. Drake, Craig R. Zimmerman, Tom Purucker and Carmen Rojo; 9. Assembly rules as general constraints on community composition Evan Weiher and Paul A. Keddy; 10. A species-based, hierarchical model of island biogeography Mark V. Lomolino; 11. Interaction of physical and biological processes in the assembly of stream fish communities Elizabeth M. Strange and Theodore C. Foin; 12. Functional implications of trait-environment linkages in plant communities Sandra Diaz, Marcelo Cabido and Fernandez Casanoves; 13. When does restoration succeed? Julie L. Lockwood and Stuart L. Pimm; 14. Assessing the state of the assembly rules Paul Keddy; Index.

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Biography

Evan Weiher is an Assistant Professor in the Biological Sciences Department, University of Winsconsin, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA. Paul Keddy holds the Edward G. Schlieder Endowed Chair for Environmental Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University, Louisiana, USA.