Human impacts are dramatically altering our natural ecosystems
but the exact repercussions on ecological sustainability and
function remain unclear. As a result, food web theory has
experienced a proliferation of research seeking to address these
critical areas. Arguing that the various recent and classical food
web theories can be looked at collectively and in a highly
consistent and testable way, "Food Webs" synthesizes and reconciles
modern and classical perspectives into a general unified
theory.
Kevin McCann brings together outcomes from population-,
community-, and ecosystem-level approaches under the common
currency of energy or material fluxes. He shows that these
approaches--often studied in isolation--all have the same general
implications in terms of population dynamic stability.
Specifically, increased fluxes of energy or material tend to
destabilize populations, communities, and whole ecosystems. With
this understanding, stabilizing structures at different levels of
the ecological hierarchy can be identified and any population-,
community-, or ecosystem-level structures that mute energy or
material flow also stabilize systems dynamics. McCann uses this
powerful general framework to discuss the effects of human impact
on the stability and sustainability of ecological systems, and he
demonstrates that there is clear empirical evidence that the
structures supporting ecological systems have been dangerously
eroded.
Uniting the latest research on food webs with classical
theories, this book will be a standard source in the understanding
of natural food web functions.
General
Imprint: |
Princeton University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Monographs in Population Biology |
Release date: |
December 2011 |
First published: |
December 2011 |
Authors: |
Kevin S. Mccann
|
Dimensions: |
235 x 152 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
256 |
Edition: |
New |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-691-13418-5 |
Categories: |
Books >
Earth & environment >
The environment >
Applied ecology >
General
|
LSN: |
0-691-13418-9 |
Barcode: |
9780691134185 |
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