Communication is perhaps the most important, but least formally discussed, aspect of current ecological research and teaching. The last twenty years has demonstrated that this is no longer a viable approach and the rise of climate change research, and its concomitant denial, has brought disagreement and outright refusal to accept facts to the research community and the wider world. This has, in turn, produced a vigorous research community aimed specifically at challenging false ideas and getting accurate science fully embedded into the public sphere. What is less common is an exploration of the parameters surrounding communication and the outputs of discourse. Ecology suffers from exactly the same problems as climate science but without the mass of research exploring the issues and potential solutions. The aim of this article is to propose a model of communication and outline the key factors involved as well as point toward some solutions. As far as can be ascertained, there is no model of ecological communication extant. Some research has put forward some elements but it is far from comprehensive. It became obvious that using a systems model would provide the base needed. Research starts with gathering data (input), working on that data (processing), and producing an end product that people can see\/use (output). At this stage, the model can be left as it is because it follows the usual route of current research (as exemplified by academia, for example). However, it was proposed, early on, to broaden this remit. The original goal was to explore how information can be distorted between production and (often multiple chains of) users and how such distortion might be ameliorated. This started in climate science but has recently moved to ecology. Thus, the final iteration of the proposed model consists of four parts. The first is the creation of a product\u2014usually research project and associated data. This aspect is subject to a range of political and logistical biases thus ensuring that the aim of studying all aspects of ecology is unlikely to be achieved. From here, data go into the process of being prepared for publication. Again, a series of forces control and constrain what is able to be later communicated. This ranges from philosophical and ideological limitations through to political and sociological filters. Cognition plays a key part not only in interpreting data but also introducing bias (deliberate or otherwise) into the results. From there, the move is to publish. Consumers take material from a range of media who may, or may not, have allowed publication. It is also the place where research output gets a wider airing and where further misinterpretation can be found. Normally, this would feed back into initial product stage but here the aim is to create a fourth division, a precursor, that argues that by studying issues in ecological communication, adaptations can be made to make it more effective and less prone to mis\/disinformation. The aim here is to provide a practical element to assist improvement of ecological communication.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0238","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,25]],"date-time":"2022-07-25T14:38:07Z","timestamp":1658759887000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Communicating Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,26]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Communicating Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,25]],"date-time":"2022-07-25T14:38:08Z","timestamp":1658759888000},"score":10.968077,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0238.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,26]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0238","published":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,26]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:22:12Z","timestamp":1715293332691},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
\u201cOurs is a world of sights and sounds. We live by our eyes and ears and tend generally to be oblivious to the chemical happenings in our surrounds. Such happenings are ubiquitous. All organisms engender chemical signals, and all, in their respective ways, respond to the chemical emissions of others. The result is a vast communicative interplay, fundamental to the fabric of life\u201d (Eisner and Meinwald 1995, p. v), cited under General Overviews). Chemical ecology is the study of ecological interactions between organisms mediated by chemicals produced by those organisms. Chemical interactions between organisms can be analyzed across all organizational levels, reaching from cell-cell interaction and intraspecific and multitrophic-level interactions to whole community interactions and environmental ecological processes. Because of their ubiquity, chemical signals that carry information (semiochemicals) can be categorized by the types of ecological interactions they mediate, such as intraspecific social communication, antagonistic interactions, and mutualism. Accordingly, this article is organized into three core areas, one formed by the chemicals mediating interactions between members of the same species (pheromones), and the others by interspecific interactions involving allomones (where the sender benefits), and synomones (where both sender and receivers benefit). A fourth group of signals, kairomones (where the receiver benefits), can comprise all other signal categories when they are perceived and utilized by a third organism that itself gains a benefit from eavesdropping on communication between others. While primary studies in chemical ecology focused on the identification of compounds mediating interactions between organisms, today\u2019s debates are dominated by micro- and macroevolutionary aspects of chemical interactions. The very rapid growth of the chemical ecology literature over recent decades has been, in part, driven by the growing appreciation of the high economic value of understanding chemical communication, reaching from applications in pest management over the control of disease vectors in agriculture to the use of chemical signals in medicine. Moreover, the field has dramatically profited from innovations in analytical chemistry, making the separation of complex compound mixtures as well as the identification of compound structures efficient and accessible to a broader community of researchers. Recent advances in molecular ecology have aided an even more rapid mechanistic and functional analysis of semiochemicals, leading to a modern consolidation of different research fields. This collection of significant publications focuses on the functional and evolutionary analysis of chemical signals important in mediating ecological interactions. Moreover, attention has been given to publications that provide conceptual frameworks and are among the most highly cited in the respective subdisciplines. They can thus provide a good introduction for the interested reader and allow efficient forward and backward searching for more detailed information.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0023","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,3,19]],"date-time":"2013-03-19T18:17:08Z","timestamp":1363717028000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Chemical Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Andr\u00e9","family":"Kessler","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Chemical Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:29:22Z","timestamp":1632425362000},"score":10.938418,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0023.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0023","published":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:23:21Z","timestamp":1715293401433},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Ecosystem ecology is a branch of study and thinking within the ecological sciences that focuses on the ecosystem\u2014a dynamic network of interactions of organisms and their environment\u2014and the importance of these interactions to the organisms and earth system processes. The discipline represents one of two different epistemological approaches within ecology that emerged in the 20th century: a species-centric community-based approach, and a process-centric ecosystem-based approach. Both approaches study the ways in which species interact among themselves and their environment, share a common language, and share a common set of principles. The community-based approach focuses on how species\u2019 distributions and abundances are shaped by their resource needs and tolerances to environmental conditions, and by their interactions with other species. The ecosystem-based approach represents a significant departure in that it considers both the resource needs and tolerances of species and their interactions with other species, but also factors in the contributions that species make to earth system processes (e.g., biogeochemical cycles, climate). The two perspectives are not as mutually exclusive as the phrasing of the approaches suggests, but rather offer different approaches to how we view the environment and communities and the factors that regulate them. In the 21st century, modern ecosystem science includes the influences that humans have as part of ecological communities and as drivers of change in ecological communities. This linkage within the ecosystem perspective of biology affecting the physical environment, and the recent developments that include the social and human dimensions, has positioned the approach as a critical one in understanding the relationship among global processes and the services that ecosystems provide to human well-being that is embodied in the emerging science of sustainability.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0202","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,28]],"date-time":"2018-08-28T09:14:08Z","timestamp":1535447648000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Ecosystem Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"J.C.","family":"Moore","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,28]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Ecosystem Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:22:29Z","timestamp":1632424949000},"score":10.8826475,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0202.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,28]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0202","published":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,28]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:22:13Z","timestamp":1715293333218},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Abiotic natural disturbance agents include wildfire, wind, landslides, snow avalanches, volcanoes, flooding, and other weather-related phenomena. Fire is of particular interest because of its antiquity, its natural role in many terrestrial ecosystems, its long-term use by humans to modify vegetation, and its potentially serious threat to life and property. Fire ecology is the art and science of understanding natural and human fire history and fire effects on the environment, species, ecosystems, and landscapes. This knowledge aids the development of fire and ecosystem management plans and activities. Fire history is determined by a number of techniques that use available physical or cultural evidence to examine particular temporal and spatial scales. Fire effects on the environment and organisms are determined by observation and experimentation, but the findings are variable and often contradictory. Fire regimes are used to characterize the role of fire in specific ecosystems and can help guide ecosystem restoration activities. Attitudes toward fire have evolved over time, as good and bad experiences combined with improved scientific understanding to influence our perspectives. Natural disturbances came to be viewed as integral parts of ecosystems rather than external perturbations. We now strive to allow fire to maintain its natural role in wilderness areas and parks and also to emulate natural disturbances, such as fire, when designing forest harvesting operations. This article focuses on how and what we know about fire\u2019s history, its effects on different components of the environment, its role in specific vegetation types, and its relationship with human culture.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0026","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,3,19]],"date-time":"2013-03-19T18:17:08Z","timestamp":1363717028000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Fire Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"John","family":"Parminter","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Fire Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:32:24Z","timestamp":1632425544000},"score":10.869828,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0026.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0026","published":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:22:58Z","timestamp":1715293378214},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Disease ecology is a rapidly developing subdiscipline of ecology concerned with how species interactions and abiotic components of the environment affect patterns and processes of disease. To date, disease ecology has focused largely on infectious disease. The scientific study of infectious disease has a long history dominated by specialists on the taxa of infectious agents (e.g., bacteriologists, virologists), mechanisms of host defense (e.g., immunologists), effects of infection on individual hosts (e.g., pathologists), effects on host populations (epidemiologists), and treatment (e.g., practicing physicians and veterinarians). Disease ecology arose as scientists increasingly recognized that the interactions between pathogen and host could be conceptually united with other interspecific interactions, such as those between predator and prey, competitors, or mutualists. At its simplest, an infectious disease consists of an interaction between one species of pathogen and one species of host. The evolution of disease ecology since the late 20th century has incorporated additional layers of complexity, including recognition that most pathogens infect multiple species of host, that hosts are infected with multiple pathogens, and that abiotic conditions (e.g., temperature, moisture) interact with biotic conditions to affect transmission and disease. As a consequence, a framework broader than the simplest host-pathogen system is often required to understand disease dynamics. Disease ecologists are interested both in the ecological causes of disease patterns (for instance, how the population density of a host influences transmission rates), and the ecological consequences of disease (for instance, how the population dynamics of a host species change as an epidemic progresses). Consequently, disease ecology today often integrates across several levels of biological organization, from molecular mechanisms of pathology and immunity; to individual-organism changes in health, survival, and reproduction; to population dynamics of hosts and pathogens; to community dynamics of hosts and pathogens; to impacts of disease on ecosystem processes; to ecosystem-level effects of climate change and landscape change on disease.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0128","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2015,2,3]],"date-time":"2015-02-03T11:57:47Z","timestamp":1422964667000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Disease Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Richard S.","family":"Ostfeld","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2015,1,15]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Disease Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:32:42Z","timestamp":1632425562000},"score":10.856902,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0128.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2015,1,15]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0128","published":{"date-parts":[[2015,1,15]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:22:22Z","timestamp":1715293342357},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
At the beginning of the 20th century there was much debate about the \u201cnature\u201d of communities. The driving question was whether the community was a self-organized system of co-occurring species or simply a haphazard collection of populations with minimal functional integration. At that time, two extreme views dominated the discussion: one view considered a community as a superorganism, the member species of which were tightly bound together by interactions that contributed to repeatable patterns of species abundance in space and time. This concept led to the assumption that communities are fundamental entities, to be classified as the Linnaean taxonomy of species. Frederick E. Clements was one of the leading proponents of this approach, and his view became known as the organismic concept of communities. This assumes a common evolutionary history for the integrated species. The opposite view was the individualistic continuum concept, advocated by H.\u00a0A. Gleason. His focus was on the traits of individual species that allow each to live within specific habitats or geographical ranges. In this view a community is an assemblage of populations of different species whose traits allow persisting in a prescribed area. The spatial boundaries are not sharp, and the species composition can change considerably. Consequently, it was discussed whether ecological communities were sufficiently coherent entities to be considered appropriate study objects. Later, consensus was reached: that properties of communities are of central interest in ecology, regardless of their integrity and coherence. From the 1950s and 1960s onward, the discussion was dominated by the deterministic outcome of local interactions between species and their environments and the building of this into models of communities. This approach, indicated as \u201ctraditional community ecology,\u201d led to a morass of theoretical models, without being able to provide general principles about many-species communities. Early-21st-century approaches to bringing general patterns into community ecology concern (1) the metacommunity approach, (2) the functional trait approach, (3) evolutionary community ecology, and (4) the four fundamental processes. The metacommunity approach implicitly recognizes and studies the important role of spatiotemporal dynamics. In the functional trait approach, four themes are focused upon: traits, environmental gradients, the interaction milieu, and performance currencies. This functional, trait-focused approach should have a better prospect of understanding the effects of global changes. Evolutionary community ecology is an approach in which the combination of community ecology and evolutionary biology will lead to a better understanding of the complexity of communities and populations. The four fundamental processes are selection, drift, speciation, and dispersal. This approach concerns an organizational scheme for community ecology, based on these four processes to describe all existing specific models and frameworks, in order to make general statements about process\u2013pattern connections.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0042","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,3,19]],"date-time":"2013-03-19T18:17:08Z","timestamp":1363717028000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Community Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Herman A.","family":"Verhoef","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Community Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:33:32Z","timestamp":1632425612000},"score":10.766319,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0042.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0042","published":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:23:35Z","timestamp":1715293415164},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Humans have become an urban species, but this is a rather recent phenomena. The first cities appeared around six thousand years ago and while their number increased, their population remained relatively small. This changed in the industrial revolution and today cities are home to more than 50 percent of the world\u2019s human population. Considering that most people live in cities and that ecology has been around for more than one hundred years, it seems obvious to have a subdiscipline called urban ecology. Not until the 1960s and 1970s, however, did urban ecology fully emerge and not until the 1990s did it become wildly popular. Most ecologists shunned urban areas, which have traditionally been viewed in opposition to natural, pristine, and wilderness places. It is true enough that water, air, and soil in cities are often polluted, open spaces are scarce and heavily managed, and communities resemble a wild mix of native and non-native species. It took a while until ecologists perceived this not just as a mess, but also as a research opportunity for understanding key ecological principles. Such principles are treated in separate Oxford Bibliographies in Ecology articles \u201cCompetition and Coexistence in Animal Communities,\u201d \u201cMetapopulations and Spatial Population Processes,\u201d \u201cIsland Biogeography Theory,\u201d \u201cSuccession,\u201d and \u201cInvasive Species.\u201d The study of these phenomena is often referred to as ecology in cities. In the 1970s, a broader, interdisciplinary perspective took hold. It is often referred to as ecology of cities and understands urban areas as social-ecological systems. This shift in perspective stemmed from a recognition that people are influencing ecosystems everywhere on earth. In fact, cities are at the heart of many environmental problems and, therefore, they are a good place to look for solutions. Today, urban ecology is a key discipline for an urban planet. The need to adapt cities to climate change, maintain vegetation in the face of climate extremes, balance the need for development with the need for green space, or decrease the negative local-to-global environmental impacts of cities can be achieved without the interdisciplinary perspective urban ecology provides. This article gives an overview of the ever-increasing urban ecology literature. Of course, the list is subjective, reflecting our academic background, professional network, and research interest as well as our language skills. We acknowledge that we may have ignored important publications, published perhaps in a language we cannot read, or we may have focused too much on one topic and too little on another. We ask readers to understand these limitations and we encourage them to help us improve this article in the future.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0222","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,7,31]],"date-time":"2019-07-31T07:27:11Z","timestamp":1564558031000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Urban Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Michael W.","family":"Strohbach","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Boris","family":"Schr\u00f6der","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,7,31]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Urban Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:26:52Z","timestamp":1632425212000},"score":10.7428055,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0222.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2019,7,31]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0222","published":{"date-parts":[[2019,7,31]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:24:07Z","timestamp":1715293447784},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Ecology and physics have borrowed ideas and techniques from each other for a long time. The archetypal example is the concept of Brownian motion, coined after the botanist Robert Brown who, in 1827, observed grains of pollen suspended in water undergoing jittering movement. It was this jittering and unpredictable movement that led Karl Pearson in 1905 to coin the name random walk which led to the first model of migration for biological organisms in his seminal contribution, A Mathematical Theory of Random Migration in 1906. The explanation of the observations by Robert Brown had to wait until Einstein\u2019s formulation of diffusion in 1905, and its experimental validation by Perrin in 1909, which ultimately led to the acceptance in the physics community of the molecular nature of physical reality. Since then, the diffusion or random walk paradigm has been a workhorse of movement modeling in most, if not all, areas of ecology. While this example clearly shows that ecology and physics have had an illustrious entangled past, it is the second half of the 20th century that has witnessed an increasing number of collaborations between practitioners from the two fields. The interactions bridging the gaps between ecology and physics have been fruitful in multiple ways, both empirically and theoretically. While instrumentations for ecological applications have naturally profited from advances in experimental physics, e.g., biosensors, imaging technologies, and tracking devices, theoretical physics has provided modeling approaches and quantitative tools to help tackle both theoretical and applied problems in ecology. More generally, physics methodologies have instilled a way of thinking characterized by the search for spatial and temporal scales that are critical to the system, by the quest to differentiate between the deterministic and the random forces at play, by the need to relate mathematical descriptions in terms of microscopic, mesoscopic, or macroscopic perspectives, and by exploring the links between population level phenomena and the interaction events of the underlying individuals. Examples of such an approach include the study of the order\/disorder phase transitions in collective animal behavior, the application of renormalization group ideas to landscape ecology, and the identification of scaling properties of transportation networks to analyze the characteristic quarter power relations in allometry. Underlying these and other examples is the belief that in living systems general or universal quantitative laws can be captured by a coarse-grained description of their most salient features. This very aspect is what has often made a physics approach to ecology controversial. While it is inevitable that simple theories have limitations, when they quantify and explain key characteristics of a process, they have much merit. They in fact provide the foundational ground from where to understand the full complexity of nature. Over the last forty years a vast literature of methodologies from theoretical physics have been applied to ecology. In some instances, they have provided a solid quantitative basis to an already developed body of literature, and in other instances they have opened up new perspectives and ideas. The sections below recount some of these ideas with citations made either to the original contributions or to review articles where research findings on a topic are synthetized and systematized, the focus being though on theoretical developments rather than empirical ones. The article also aims, predominantly, to identify distinct contributions from physics rather than the much broader applied mathematics community.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0249","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,25]],"date-time":"2023-10-25T12:49:35Z","timestamp":1698238175000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Ecology and Physics"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Luca","family":"Giuggioli","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,26]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Ecology and Physics"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,25]],"date-time":"2023-10-25T12:49:35Z","timestamp":1698238175000},"score":10.697831,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/display\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0249.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,26]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0249","published":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,26]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:22:10Z","timestamp":1715293330270},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Mycorrhizae are ubiquitous in terrestrial ecosystems. With an increasing awareness that this symbiotic association plays important roles in plant population dynamics, community structures and ecosystem functioning, mycorrhizal ecology has emerged as a fast growing subdiscipline in the field of ecology. Over recent decades, studies have expanded from descriptions of basic mycorrhizal biology to investigations of their functional relevance in a broader ecological context. Today\u2019s research is dominated by the search for underlying mechanisms and general principles. The readings on issues related to mycorrhizal ecology include basic overviews of mycorrhizal studies, classification and species diversity, methodology in mycorrhizal examination, costs and benefits, population and community ecology of mycorrhizae, their ecological significance in plant community and ecosystem, multitrophic interactions, and practical applications. This bibliography focuses on the most widespread and ecologically important types of mycorrhizae\u2014arbuscular mycorrhizae and ectomycorrhizae.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0014","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,3,19]],"date-time":"2013-03-19T18:17:08Z","timestamp":1363717028000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Mycorrhizal Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Baoming","family":"Ji","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"James D.","family":"Bever","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Mycorrhizal Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:27:13Z","timestamp":1632425233000},"score":10.695768,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0014.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0014","published":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,21]],"date-time":"2025-08-21T17:10:00Z","timestamp":1755796200711,"version":"3.44.0"},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"type":"electronic","value":"9780199830060"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
The open ocean covers more than 65 percent of Earth\u2019s surface and thus represents the largest environment on our planet. Far from uniform, it encompasses a variety of different habitats spanning depths from approximately 650 feet to over 36,000 feet (average depth of over 12,300 feet). The lack of sunlight and the high hydrostatic pressures (on average approximately 400 atm) lead many to consider these environments extreme. In addition, temperatures in the deep sea are typically below 39.2\u00b0F, and as low as 28.4\u00b0F in deep Antarctic waters, which play a key role on the biodiversity distribution of deep-sea fauna (see M. Yasuhara and R. Danovaro, \u201cTemperature Impacts on Deep-Sea Biodiversity,\u201d Biological Reviews 91, no. 2 [2016]: 275\u2013287). The absence of photosynthetic primary production in the deep sea results in the dominance of heterotrophic species, which depend upon the supply of organic material settling down from the photic zone or the continents. Nonetheless, chemoautotrophic bacteria and archaea that occur in hydrothermal vents and cold seeps also occur in all deep-sea sediments and contribute an important source of primary production. The deep sea hosts a wide variety of habitats and ecosystems largely defined by topographic heterogeneity and spanning from continental slopes and canyons to mid-ocean ridges, seamounts, abyssal plains, and trenches. All these massive geologic features host unique and diverse habitats that support rich assemblages and high biodiversity. Tropical coral reefs, because they support high numbers of species per unit area, and the deep sea, because it spans an enormous area, represent the two biggest repositories of marine biodiversity. High levels of endemism characterize the latter, despite the virtual absence of physical barriers. Seamounts, for example, harbor impressive species richness, and some exhibit high levels of endemism, with 30 to 50 percent of endemic invertebrate species on some seamounts. The remoteness, inaccessibility, and complexity of deep marine environments make these systems the last frontiers of scientific research and exploration on our planet. Recent discoveries, such as those enabled by the development of new technologies, the synergy of interdisciplinary skills, and the greater attention to resources and ecosystem services provided by deep-sea environments, provide strong impetus to accelerate research in these ecosystems.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0260","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,18]],"date-time":"2025-08-18T05:12:26Z","timestamp":1755493946000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Deep Sea Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Roberto","family":"Danovaro","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Paul","family":"Snelgrove","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,19]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Deep Sea Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,18]],"date-time":"2025-08-18T05:12:26Z","timestamp":1755493946000},"score":10.685471,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/display\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0260.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,19]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0260","published":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,19]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:23:20Z","timestamp":1715293400785},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Grazing systems, grass-like vegetation interacting with their large mammal grazers, are important globally, where estimates of their potential extent (depending on classifications) range from 30 to 70 percent of the terrestrial land surface and show a major presence on five continents. In grasslands and savanna ecosystems, the grazing energy channel is prominent (~50 percent of energy flows through herbivores), unlike energy flow in more arid ecosystems where the detrital energy channel predominates. While variable, estimates of consumption of above-ground net primary productivity (ANPP) by native large mammal herbivores ranges from 1 (desert grassland) to ~64 percent (mesic grasslands), and cattle remove 15\u201380 percent (see chapter by J.\u00a0K. Detling, \u201cGrasslands and Savannas: Regulation of energy flow and nutrient cycling by herbivores,\u201d in Concepts of Ecosystem Ecology: A Comparative View, edited by L.\u00a0R. Pomeroy and J.\u00a0J. Alberts [New York: Springer-Verlag, 1988], pp. 131\u2013154). Consequently, in addition to altered aboveground biomass, one expects significant system responses to grazers, including altered plant community species composition, changed plant morphology and population structure, impacted nutrient cycles, and altered habitat structure in turn affecting animal species distributions both native and exotic. Examples of each of these responses are provided in this article. Our bibliography takes a decidedly grazer-centric view. Topics in grazing ecology are wide ranging, where both plant and grazer responses are studied as we attempt to integrate the many moving parts operating at multiple scales to understand responses from multiple perspectives. These include an understanding of the role of disturbances (fire, drought, herbivory), internal dynamics driving fire-grazer interactions, variable environmental conditions (especially primary production and rainfall), resource heterogeneity at multiple spatial scales, variable herbivore body size, different digestive physiologies of herbivores, sedentary presence and migratory movement of large mammalian herbivores in response to variable environmental conditions, and trophic control of food webs including bottom-up\/top-down regulation with important roles for direct and indirect species interactions. Combined, many factors contribute to a range of equilibrial and nonequilibrial interpretations of key responses and patterns of grazing ecology with important implications for management and conservation of these systems worldwide. Much of grazing ecology focuses on the interactions of large mammal herbivores with vegetation structure and plant communities. Much less is known about invertebrate grazers, although they can be important participants as well. This article deals primarily with vertebrate grazers, factors affecting grazing dynamics, and examples of the effects of grazing on grassland structure and function.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0201","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,6,27]],"date-time":"2018-06-27T09:29:51Z","timestamp":1530091791000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Grazer Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Anthony","family":"Joern","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Edward J.","family":"Raynor","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,6,27]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Grazer Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:29:33Z","timestamp":1632425373000},"score":10.682245,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0201.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,6,27]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0201","published":{"date-parts":[[2018,6,27]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,14]],"date-time":"2025-04-14T09:13:04Z","timestamp":1744621984365},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Industrial ecology (IE) tracks physical resource flows of industrial and consumer systems at a variety of spatial scales, drawing on environmental and social science, engineering, management, and policy analysis. Prescriptively, IE seeks to reduce environmental impacts and the pressure on natural resources while maintaining function for human well-being, by stressing the importance of production choices to extend the life of embedded materials and energy, emphasizing circular rather than linear flows, and decoupling economic growth from resource use. IE has been described as a \u201cpost-modern science\u201d that synthesizes multiple perspectives in theory and problem solving, often simultaneously, as a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary field. The unusual name \u201cindustrial ecology\u201d derives from a metaphor with the biological ecosystem and borrows on several fronts, such as its focus on resource cycling, multi-scalar systems, material and energy stocks and flows, and food webs. Over time concepts from other sciences have also been weaved into industrial ecology. The intellectual roots of industrial ecology date back to the 19th century, and some seminal methods were published in the 1960s and 1970s. It took until the early 1990s, however, before a scientific field began to take shape. Since its early days, industrial ecology has become more robust through database development, deeper mathematical modeling, collaboration among natural, physical, and social scientists, and extension of theory on its own and in dialogue with other allied fields. At the same time, industrial ecology increasingly contributes insights to environmental management and policy, on issues ranging from climate change, to biodiversity loss, water, and more. Despite its youth, breadth, and intersection with other disciplines, industrial ecology can lay claim to several subfields as being within its ambit: industrial symbiosis, which studies the exchange of byproducts and sharing of resources among industrial actors; socioeconomic metabolism and material flows analysis, focusing on the stocks and flows of various materials through society; life-cycle assessment, examining the environmental impact of a material, product, or system across its entire life cycle; environmental input-output analysis, broadly focused on the environmental impact of entire sectors of the economy; sustainable urban systems, with focus on metabolism of resources at the urban scale; and resource productivity and circular economy, addressing the effectiveness of resource use while decreasing its impact. In addition to these core subfields, other topics are more loosely linked with industrial ecology, including green chemistry, life-cycle engineering, social ecology, design for environment, and ecological economics.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0200","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,28]],"date-time":"2018-03-28T14:31:57Z","timestamp":1522247517000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Industrial Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Marian","family":"Chertow","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Reid","family":"Lifset","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Tom","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,28]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Industrial Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:25:26Z","timestamp":1632425126000},"score":10.680103,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0200.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,28]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0200","published":{"date-parts":[[2018,3,28]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:22:21Z","timestamp":1715293341782},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
As its name suggests, applied ecology focuses on the application of ecological knowledge to address environmental challenges. Like all ecologists, applied ecologists study the distribution, abundance, and interactions among organisms as well as the ways in which organisms influence the movement of energy and materials through ecosystems. Applied ecologists have a particular interest in the ways in which organisms and ecosystems are influenced by humans. And increasingly, applied ecologists include humans as integral to the systems they study. While the term applied ecology implies the existence of basic ecology, the research aims of many contemporary ecologists embrace applied dimensions, suggesting that distinctions between applied and basic ecology can be less obvious than they once were.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0039","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,3,19]],"date-time":"2013-03-19T18:17:08Z","timestamp":1363717028000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Applied Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"David K.","family":"Skelly","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"L. Kealoha","family":"Freidenburg","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Applied Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:35:30Z","timestamp":1632425730000},"score":10.661942,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0039.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0039","published":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:24:02Z","timestamp":1715293442818},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Flooding is a condition in which the terrestrial surface, streams, rivers, lakes, and wetlands can no longer hold the discharge of water, and the excess water spreads out to the adjoining structures. Often such spreads bring ecological, environmental, economic, and societal destruction and disaster. Therefore flooding, as one of the major destructive natural disturbances in general, comes with a negative connotation. Although flooding can happen in a multitude of ways, from an ecological point of view, low to mild natural flooding (\u201cregular flooding\u201d) is a natural process in many terrestrial and transition zones (e.g., coastal transitions), provides several ecosystem services, and is an essential factor affecting the structure, function, and the health of coastal and riverine ecosystems, including floodplains. For instance, regular or predictable flooding is significant to maintaining healthy floodplain soils and vegetation that provide multiple resources to surrounding communities. However, the extent, intensity, direction, timing, and duration of flooding in a landscape would determine the ecological functions versus disaster. This article focuses on historical to recent literature on flooding ecology, types of flooding, and effects of flooding on different components of natural ecosystems. Because flooding ecology and its impact on agriculture and humanity deserve their separate bibliography, this bibliography deals only with the human and socioeconomic aspects of flooding.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0244","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,22]],"date-time":"2023-04-22T04:24:56Z","timestamp":1682137496000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Flood Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Shishir","family":"Paudel","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Juan C.","family":"Benavides","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,24]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Flood Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,22]],"date-time":"2023-04-22T04:24:56Z","timestamp":1682137496000},"score":10.6521,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/display\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0244.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,24]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0244","published":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,24]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:23:01Z","timestamp":1715293381236},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
The Himalayan region, spanning Bhutan, Nepal, northern India, Pakistan, and the Tibet Autonomous Region, may be defined by its mountainous geography, but it is characterized by tremendous ecological diversity. This diversity results from the altitude, slope, and aspect of the mountains and complex glaciology and hydrology as well as the climate and the micro-climates that the range itself shapes. It is evident in alpine pastures and fertile valleys; high altitude deserts and montane; temperate, tropical, and subtropical forests; grasslands; and glacial lake and river systems. The ecological diversity of the region is matched by that of its human communities, which adhere to a range of religious beliefs and cultural practices and pursue complex livelihood strategies. Understanding this relationship\u2014between people and the environment\u2014has been an enduring theme in studies of Himalayan ecology. Some scholarship takes the Himalayan region as an important site in which to learn how human communities are shaped by the natural environment; other studies consider the reverse, how people influence the ecological communities within the Himalaya. In this respect, the Himalaya has been an important site for the broader study of human-environment relations. Contentious debates on population, environmental degradation, natural resource management, and conservation that extend well beyond the region are all well represented within this regional literature. Notable too is the way that these issues have proved of interest for academic inquiry, policy, and practice and have given rise to scholarship on political ecology, community forestry, pastoralism, climate change, and biodiversity and conservation.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0139","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2016,2,3]],"date-time":"2016-02-03T12:29:22Z","timestamp":1454502562000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Ecology of the Himalaya"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Shaila","family":"Seshia Galvin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,1,21]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Ecology of the Himalaya"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:32:31Z","timestamp":1632425551000},"score":10.587912,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0139.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2016,1,21]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0139","published":{"date-parts":[[2016,1,21]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:23:36Z","timestamp":1715293416749},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Wetland ecosystems comprise only 3\u20135 percent of the world\u2019s land surface, but their unique habitats and specialized and rare species have garnered the attention of biologists for centuries. The use of wetlands in Europe and Asia has a deep history, as draining peat bogs, marshes, mires, and swamps for fuel, timber, and agricultural crops was common practice. The first academic use of the word wetlands appears in Catesby\u2019s 1754 book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahamas Islands, and early studies of wetlands focused on the distinct flora and fauna found in these ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on waterfowl, fish, or other game. Illustrating this point is the first major assessment and classification of wetlands across the United States in 1956, which is solely based on waterfowl habitat value. Research on wetlands quickly evolved in the 1960s and 1970s to become a distinct subdiscipline of the burgeoning field of ecology. Fueled by the concept of wetlands as \u201cMother Nature\u2019s kidneys,\u201d and by their potential for cheap wastewater treatment, there was an initial focus on their biogeochemical and hydrologic functions on the landscape, as well as the nutrient removal or transformation services they provided. Research in both Europe and the United States also focused on how plants and animals survived the alternating wet\/dry soil regimes wetlands possessed and demonstrated that wide-ranging soil redox conditions were microbial driven and produced either reduced or oxidized chemical ions, often with toxic or altered properties, depending on the presence or absence of oxygen and alternate electron acceptors like nitrate or iron. These findings led to a number of elegant studies focusing on the ecophysiology of how wetland plants and animals survived anaerobic conditions, the presence of toxic chemicals, and saline conditions found in coastal marshes. Since the 1990s, research has focused more on biogeochemical cycling in wetlands, especially nitrogen, phosphorus, and, more recently, carbon flux and storage as it relates to global climate change, as it became understood that wetland soils are globally important stores of carbon and sources of atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Thus, global warming effects on boreal and tropical wetlands and continued drainage of these ecosystems worldwide have become a major area of concern, along with the effects of sea level rise on coastal wetland survival. To offset these losses, the fields of wetland restoration and ecologic economics have become increasing relevant.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0220","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,7,31]],"date-time":"2019-07-31T07:27:24Z","timestamp":1564558044000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Wetland Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Curtis J.","family":"Richardson","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"R. Scott","family":"Winton","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,7,31]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Wetland Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:26:14Z","timestamp":1632425174000},"score":10.5792675,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0220.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2019,7,31]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0220","published":{"date-parts":[[2019,7,31]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:23:39Z","timestamp":1715293419056},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
Chance events (such as lightning strikes or floods) occur commonly in nature. In ecology, random events that can affect population and community dynamics are called stochastic processes. Although ecologists recognize that stochastic processes occur, their importance in shaping populations and communities has been controversial. Determining when and how stochastic processes are important ecologically is critical for predicting extinction events or responses to climate change and explaining tropical biodiversity. Many population dynamics appears to be stochastic, particularly when the environment fluctuates or the population is small. For example, environmental variation that can reduce population size can increase the likelihood of stochastic extinction, because a small population is prone to go extinct due to random fluctuation in population size. Chance colonization and random order of immigration\/emigration can influence the dynamics of populations and communities if early-arriving species outcompete later-arriving species. Stochastic processes can also create environmental fluctuations that favor species that could otherwise go extinct, if such fluctuations can allow for coexistence when species benefit from different environmental conditions. Modern ecologists generally agree that dynamics of populations and communities have both deterministic and stochastic components that operate simultaneously. The author wishes to thank Stacey Halpern for comments.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0224","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,28]],"date-time":"2019-08-28T08:04:27Z","timestamp":1566979467000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Stochastic Processes in Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Kohmei","family":"Kadowaki","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,28]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Stochastic Processes in Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,28]],"date-time":"2022-11-28T10:22:13Z","timestamp":1669630933000},"score":10.5792675,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0224.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,28]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0224","published":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,28]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,9]],"date-time":"2024-05-09T22:22:25Z","timestamp":1715293345607},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780199830060","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"abstract":"
The study of soil ecology has a long tradition. Most of this interest, until relatively recently, has been from an agricultural perspective, but now it is widely accepted that soil ecology is central to the study of terrestrial ecology. Early research in soil ecology was largely descriptive, detailing the abundance of diversity of organisms in soils of different habitats. However, interest in functional soil ecology started in the 1980s with studies of trophic interactions in soil and their importance for nutrient cycles and decomposition. Now, the topic has blossomed, with the help of new technologies that allow the study of soil organisms and their activities in situ, and there is currently widespread recognition that soil ecology is fundamental to our understanding of the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems and their response to global change. Today, the field of soil ecology is dominated by discussions on the use of new molecular tools that enable ecologists to understand what regulates patterns of diversity in soil, the functional role of soil biodiversity and plant-soil interactions, especially those that occur at the root-soil interface, and the role of soil biological communities in regulating ecosystem responses to global change, including the global carbon cycle under climate change. Many challenges still remain in soil ecology, and perhaps the most significant is the need for a stronger theoretical basis for the subject; almost all studies in this area have been carried out from an empirical perspective, and modeling approaches are still in their infancy. As a consequence, our ability to make predictions about the role of soil biological interactions and feedbacks in regulating terrestrial ecosystem processes and their response to global change remains limited.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0067","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,3,19]],"date-time":"2013-03-19T18:17:08Z","timestamp":1363717028000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Soil Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Franciska T.","family":"De Vries","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Richard D.","family":"Bardgett","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Soil Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:26:14Z","timestamp":1632425174000},"score":10.528564,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0067.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0067","published":{"date-parts":[[2012,5,23]]}},{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,8]],"date-time":"2024-05-08T02:22:08Z","timestamp":1715134928757},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","isbn-type":[{"value":"9780197614044","type":"print"},{"value":"9780197764800","type":"electronic"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,7]]},"abstract":"
Key Concepts<\/p>\n
\n \n \n \n Animal population ecology comprises the study of the growth, regulation, and interactions of animal populations. As a level of organization, the population comes between individuals on the one hand and communities on the other, but there is not a sharp distinction between those phenomena that affect the levels above and below from those of the population: a population\u2019s growth may be much effected by the behavior of its constituent individuals, while the presence of predators, prey, and competitors in the community will likewise have important effects on the population. Nonetheless, the population is a worthy area of emphasis (for greater consideration of multispecies interactions and other aspects of community structure and function, see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article \u201cCommunity Ecology\u201d). Animals share a number of relevant ecological features that make a separation from plants useful: animals are all heterotrophs, mostly exist as biologically separate and genetically distinct individuals, and most are sexual. There are greater or lesser exceptions to all of these features, but they unify the phenomena of animal populations, and make counting individuals an intuitive and practical way of accounting for their populations\u2019 growth and numbers. That part of ecology that deals with populations of animals is thus an interesting partition, and as a distinct area of study is well-justified by historical development and current practice.<\/p>","DOI":"10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0192","type":"reference-entry","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,1,11]],"date-time":"2018-01-11T08:57:22Z","timestamp":1515661042000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Animal Population Ecology"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"given":"Frank N.","family":"Egerton","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Gregory C.","family":"Mayer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,1,11]]},"container-title":["Ecology"],"original-title":["Animal Population Ecology"],"language":"en","deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,23]],"date-time":"2021-09-23T19:31:14Z","timestamp":1632425474000},"score":10.516019,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199830060\/obo-9780199830060-0192.xml"}},"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,1,11]]},"ISBN":["9780199830060"],"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/obo\/9780199830060-0192","published":{"date-parts":[[2018,1,11]]}}],"items-per-page":20,"query":{"start-index":0,"search-terms":"Ecology"}}}