CompetitionSpringer Science & Business Media, 6 дек. 2012 г. - Всего страниц: 552 Competition is one of the most important factors controlling the distribution and abundance of living creatures. Sperm cells racing up reproductive tracts, beetle larvae battling inside single seeds, birds defending territories, and trees interfering with the light available to neighbours, are all engaged in competition for limited resources. Along with predation and mutualism, competition is one of the three major biological forces that assemble living communities. Recent experimental work, much of it only from the last few decades, has enhanced human knowledge of the prevalence of competition in nature. There are acacia trees that use ants to damage vines, beetles that compete in arenas for access to dung balls, tadpoles that apparently poison their neighbours, birds that smash the eggs of potential competitors, and plants that associate with fungi in order to increase access to soil resources. While intended as an up-to-date reference work on the state of this branch of ecology, the many non-technical examples will make interesting reading for those with a general interest in nature. Greatly expanded from the first prize-winning edition, 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. The question of whether competition occurs is no longer useful, the author maintains; rather the challenge is to determine when and where each kind of competition is important in natural systems. For this reason, variants of competition such as intensity, asymmetry and hierarchies are singled out for particular attention. The book concludes with the difficulties of finding general principles in complex ecological communities, and illustrates the limitations on knowledge that arise out of the biased conduct of scientists themselves. Competition can be found elsewhere in living systems other than ecological communities, at sub-microscopic scales in the interactions of enzymes and neural pathways, and over large geographic areas in the spread of human populations and contrasting ideas about the world. Human societies are therefore also examined for evidence of the kinds of competition found among other living organisms. 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 ethnic battles of the Balkans, the book illustrates how most of the aspects of competition illustrated with plants and animals can be extended to the interactions of human beings and their societies. |
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... densities or dealing with weeds. Says the Bible (Matt 13:3-7) “Behold a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed . . . some [seeds] fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up and choked them." As we shall also see, the Bible also ...
... density-dependent effects and an analysis of causes. This is frequently accomplished by exploring the way in which crop yield varies with sowing density, often with a range of fertilization levels. Harper noted that the population ...
... densities, and recording the performance of individuals (for example, Intraspecific Interspecific pairwise --> <!— Interspecific intensity Intensity. #. *. Fig. 1.5 Four kinds of competitive interactions. Each open circle represents a ...
... density upon crop yield. Even the backyard gardener thinning a patch of radishes or peas understands intuitively that reducing the density of plants will enhance the performance of remaining individuals. Ecologists have also studied the ...
... density of plants at maturity. (a) Vulpia fasciculata. (b) Salicornia europaea on a high (O) and low (@) marsh. (c) Cakile edentula on the seaward (O), middle (O) and landward (A) sides of a sand dune. (d) Rhinanthus augustifolius. (e) ...
Содержание
Chapter 2 Resources | 60 |
Chapter 3 Competition in action | 121 |
Chapter 4 Choosing the tools | 152 |
Chapter 5 Competitive hierarchies | 203 |
Chapter 6 Traits and competitive performance | 241 |
Chapter 7 Competition gradients | 281 |
Chapter 8 Extending the generality of field experiments | 317 |
Chapter 9 Modelling competition | 333 |
Chapter 10 Competition pragmatism and comparison | 405 |
Chapter 11 Goals and obstacles in the study of competition | 457 |
References | 487 |
Index | 535 |
Population and Community Biology Series | 553 |