Community Ecology and Salamander Guilds

by Nelson G. Hairston

• ISBN13: 9780521310819
• ISBN10: 0521310814
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1988-03-10
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This informative book, first published in 1987, presents the theories of community ecology within the context of a natural example. The text describes and examines issues in community ecology and shows how research on salamanders has helped to solve some of the problems surrounding the theories. Salamanders exist in stable populations of the kind assumed in community theory and are more appropriate than most other animals for research on the applications of that theory. The interesting and meaningful results, collected from observation on these excellent subjects posed challenges to beliefs within community ecology. Life histories of salamanders, fieldwork in distinctly differing habitats, competition, predation and evolution are discussed in an easily readable text. Professional ecologists and students of community ecology and herpetology will be interedted in the information synthesised in this book.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Challenges to community theory

Equilibrium and stability in natural populations

An introduction to the variety of salamander life histories

Communities of pond-inhabiting salamanders

Communities of terrestrial salamanders

Communities of streamside slaamanders

Evolution in salamander communities: experimental tests

Salamanders in future ecological research

References

Indexes

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.