Big Ideas Simply Explained - The Ecology Book

["\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ECOSYSTEMS 149 The rebirth of Krakatau Ecologists also studied the diversity Central Park in Manhattan, New York In 1883, volcanic eruptions of beetles and flies in nine parks of City, is an \u201cisland\u201d in an urban setting. devastated the Indonesian different sizes in Cincinnati, Ohio. Its checklist includes 134 bird species, island of Krakatau, wiping out Area was the best predictor of 197 insect, 9 mammal, 5 reptile, 59 flora and fauna on the island species richness, but when the fungi, and 441 plant species. and nearby Sertung and ecologists coupled their findings Panjang. By 1886, mosses, with data on population sizes, they activity, the island theory has also algae, flowering plants, and calculated that an increased size of encouraged the creation of wildlife ferns had returned to Krakatau, parkland acts primarily to reduce corridors. These link areas of borne either on the wind or as extinction rates rather than to suitable habitat, which helps seeds on the surf. The first provide habitats for new species. maintain ecological processes\u2014for young trees emerged in 1887; example, allowing animal movement various insect species, and a Conservation practices and enabling viable populations to single lizard, were discovered Soon after the island biogeography survive\u2014without requiring a great in 1889. Recent research shows theory was developed, ecologists expansion of protected areas. \u25a0 that the level of immigration began to apply it to conservation. to Krakatau and its neighbors Nature reserves and national parks I will argue that every peaked during the period of were seen as \u201cislands\u201d in landscapes scrap of biological forest formation, from 1908 to altered by human activity. When 1921, but extinctions were at first creating protected areas, diversity is priceless \u2026 their height when the dense ecologists debated the optimum Edward O. Wilson tree canopy prevented sunlight size: was one big reserve better than from reaching the forest floor, several smaller ones? As the island between 1921\u201333. Although theory shows, biodiversity depends the immigration of land birds on a number of factors, and different and reptiles has almost species benefit in different settings. stopped, new species of land A sizable mammal will not survive mollusk and many insect in a small reserve, but many small groups are still arriving from organisms will thrive there. In Sumatra and Java, both just places under pressure from human under 28 miles (45 km) away. Krakatau\u2019s deadly eruption sent up an ash cloud 50 miles (80 km) high that altered global weather patterns and caused a temperature drop of 2.2\u00b0F (1.2\u00b0C) for five years.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 150 IOTTHFIASNTUTMMHABETECTROESNRSSTANCY ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE IN CONTEXT T he capacity for ecosystems population changes are not as to recover following a important as whether the whole KEY FIGURE disturbance\u2014such as a system is being fundamentally Crawford Stanley large fire, flood, hurricane, severe altered. The resilience of a system Holling (1930\u2013) pollution, deforestation, or the can be described either by the time introduction of an \u201cexotic\u201d new it takes to return to equilibrium BEFORE species\u2014is known as ecological after a big shock or by its capacity 1859 Charles Darwin resilience. Any of these impacts to absorb disturbance. describes the interdependence can upset food webs, often between species as an dramatically, and human activity One example that Holling studied \u201centangled bank.\u201d is responsible for an increasing was the fisheries of the Great Lakes number of them. in North America. A large tonnage 1955 In the US, Robert of sturgeon, herring, and other fish MacArthur proposes Staying resilient was harvested in the early decades a measure of ecosystem Canadian ecologist Crawford of the 20th century, but overfishing stability that increases as Stanley Holling first proposed the dramatically reduced the catches. the number of interactions idea of ecological resilience to Despite subsequent controls on between species multiplies. describe the persistence of natural fishing, populations in the Great systems in the face of disruptive Lakes did not recover. Holling 1972 In contrast with changes. Holling argued that MacArthur, Australian natural systems require stability Ecosystems are dynamic\u2014 ecologist Robert May and resilience, but\u2014contrary constantly changing and argues that more diverse to what previous ecologists had inherently uncertain, with communities with more assumed\u2014these are not always complex relationships may be the same qualities. potential multiple futures \u2026 less able to maintain a stable Crawford Stanley Holling balance between species. A stable system resists change in order to maintain the status quo, AFTER but resilience involves innovation 2003 Australian ecologist and adaptation. Holling wrote Brian Walker works with that natural, undisturbed systems Crawford Holling to refine are likely to be continually in a the definition of resilience. transient state, with populations of some species increasing and others decreasing. However, these","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ECOSYSTEMS 151 See also: The food chain 132\u2013133 \u25a0 The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 Energy flow The role of budworm through ecosystems 138\u2013139 \u25a0 Trophic cascades 140\u2013143 Spruce budworm caterpillars suggested that the intense fishing A thick green scum of algae covers have devastated balsam fir had progressively reduced the parts of Lonar Lake, in Maharashtra, forests in eastern North resilience of the ecosystem. India. Algae thrive in high-nutrient America six times since conditions, but decomposing algae the 18th century. Holling Holling argued that ecological consume oxygen, and depleted levels of described this process as resilience is not always positive. oxygen lead to fewer fish surviving. having two very different If a freshwater lake experiences states: one with young, a large input of nutrients from components of the ecosystem fast-growing trees and few agricultural fertilizers, for example, can change. One example is the budworms; and one with it will become eutrophic: algae will disappearance of most American mature trees and very large thrive, depleting the lake\u2019s oxygen chestnuts from forests in eastern numbers of budworms. and making it unsuitable for fish. North America, which was largely Such a lake may be resilient, but it compensated for by the expansion Between outbreaks of will become less biodiverse. Holling of oaks and hickories. For Holling, budworms, young balsam fir claimed that three critical factors this counted as resilience, because grow alongside spruce and determine resilience: the most a although the exact mix of tree white birch trees. Eventually, system can be changed before species had changed, broad-leaved the fir becomes dominant. crossing a threshold that makes forest still remained. A combination of this total recovery impossible; the ease dominance and a sequence or difficulty in making a big change Ecologists now understand that of very dry years stimulates to the system; and how close to the ecosystems can have more than a huge increase in the threshold a system is currently. one stable state. In Australia, for budworm population. The example, woodlands dominated by mature fir is destroyed, giving Changing states mulga trees can exist in a grass- the spruce and birch an According to Holling\u2019s view, rich environment that supports opportunity to regenerate. resilience at the ecosystem level is sheep-farming, or in a shrub- By keeping the balsam fir enhanced by its populations not dominated environment that is in check, the budworm also being too rigid\u2014meaning that the totally unsuitable for sheep. \u25a0 maintains the spruce and birch. Without it, the fir trees would crowd out the others. So the system is unstable but at the same time resilient. Spruce budworm larvae in Quebec, Canada, feed voraciously on fir and spruce before they pupate. Moths emerge about a month later, ready to mate.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 152 SUPOUNPBPURJLEECADTITCIEOTDNATSBOLAERFEORCES THE NEUTRAL THEORY OF BIODIVERSITY IN CONTEXT B iodiversity is shaped Caswell made a bold attempt globally by new species to create a neutral theory of KEY FIGURES appearing and others community organization. Hal Caswell (1949\u2013), becoming extinct. Community Stephen P. Hubbell (1942\u2013) ecology has traditionally held that Stephen P. Hubbell interactions between species play BEFORE a vital role in determining this Neutral theories of biodiversity have 1920 Frederic Clements process. If two species compete for dominated community ecology in describes how plant species similar resources, for example, either recent years. However, an Australian are associated with each other the stronger pushes the weaker study of coral reefs, published in in communities. to extinction, or each is driven into 2014, focusing on once-dominant a narrower niche of specialism. species that have been almost lost 1926 Henry Gleason proposes to overfishing, did not support the that ecological communities In 1976, however, American theory. According to Hubbell, are organized more randomly. ecologist Hal Caswell proposed species are interchangeable, so a \u201cneutral\u201d theory of biodiversity. It others should have increased to take 1967 Richard Root introduces maintained that ecologically similar their place. The fact that this did not the concept of the ecological species are competitively equal, and happen in this case suggests that guild\u2014a group of species whether species become common the neutral theory is flawed. The exploiting resources in or rare is down to chance processes. question of what maintains diversity similar ways. remains an open one. \u25a0 The \u201cnull\u201d model AFTER In the early 2000s, American 2018 A review headed ecologist Stephen P. Hubbell by Dutch ecologist Marten developed a mathematical model Scheffer suggests that, known as the \u201cnull\u201d hypothesis, although species that use published in The Unified Theory the same resources may of Biodiversity and Geography (2001), be competitively equivalent, that supported Caswell\u2019s theory. they may also differ according He tested his model by studying to their response to stress- real communities. inducing factors, such as drought or disease. See also: Human activity and biodiversity 92\u201395 \u25a0 Island biogeography 144\u2013149 \u25a0 Climax community 172\u2013173 \u25a0 Open community theory 174\u2013175","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ECOSYSTEMS 153 OOTAHFNCELRHYCEAASONEMCCAEOPRMLOCEFMHXUREWRNEVSIHTEOHYALALESING BIG ECOLOGY IN CONTEXT A n in-depth understanding affect hydrology, biodiversity, and of ecosystems requires carbon dynamics\u2014the way carbon KEY ORGANIZATION long-term study. In 1980, and nutrients move through the National Science the US National Science Foundation ecosystem. There are many other Foundation (created 1950) set up six Long Term Ecological long-term research sites worldwide Research (LTER) sites to study with researchers logging data on BEFORE long-term, large-scale ecological ecosystems. With free access to 1926 Russian geochemist phenomena. There are currently the information, the research can and mineralogist Vladimir 28 sites, five of which have been be easily disseminated globally. \u25a0 Vernadsky formulates the running since 1980. Ecologists are theory of the biosphere amassing datasets that will enable in which everything on in-depth knowledge to be shared. Earth lives. A forest ecosystem Log decomposition is being studied 1935 Pioneering British One of the six original research over a 200-year period at six old-growth ecologist Arthur Tansley sites is Andrews Forest in Oregon. forest sites in Andrews Forest, Oregon. defines an ecosystem It provides a good example of a The experiment began in 1985. as encompassing all the temperate rain forest, enjoying interactions between mild, wet winters and cool, dry a group of living creatures summers. With 40 percent being and their environment. old-growth conifer forest, there is a high degree of biodiversity across AFTER its forest, stream, and meadow 1992 At the Earth Summit ecosystems. Ecologists have in Rio de Janeiro, there is recorded thousands of species of international consensus insects, 83 bird species, 19 conifer on the importance of species, and 9 species of fish. protecting the biosphere. Projects aim to observe how land- use (such as forestry) and natural 1997 The Kyoto Protocol phenomena (fires, floods, climate) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is signed by See also: The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 The biosphere 204\u2013205 \u25a0 Sustainable 192 countries. Biosphere Initiative 322\u2013323 \u25a0 Ecosystem services 328\u2013329","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 154 DOTHETPHEEEBNREDSSSTAORSNETRDWAOHTINAETGGY EVOLUTIONARILY STABLE STATE IN CONTEXT Animals come into T he field of behavioral conflict with each other ecology seeks to explain KEY FIGURE over food, territory, and how the behavior of John Maynard Smith animals\u2014what they eat, how they (1920\u20132004) mate selection. socialize, and so on\u2014has evolved They have evolved to to suit their particular environment. BEFORE react to the behavior of The driving force is natural selection 1944 Mathematician John von other animals in certain because the environment favors Neumann and economist preprogrammed ways. individuals with certain genes\u2014 Oskar Morgenstern use a some genes are \u201cbetter\u201d for certain theory of games of strategy to The best strategy situations and not for others\u2014 devise a mathematical theory depends on what which are then passed on to of economic and social others are doing. offspring. Because the behavior of organization. animals is influenced by genes, behavior must be influenced by 1964 British biologist W.D. natural selection as well. Hamilton applies game theory to the evolution of social Adaptive behavior behavior in animals. In 1972, British evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith 1965 Hamilton uses game introduced a theory known as the theory to describe the evolutionarily stable strategy ecological consequences (ESS), that helped explain how of natural selection. behavioral strategies appear by natural selection. Just as factors 1976 Richard Dawkins such as food and temperature can popularizes the idea of affect animals, so can the behavior evolutionarily stable strategies. of other species. Maynard Smith suggested that an ESS adapts to AFTER the behavior of other animals, and 1982 John Maynard Smith cannot be beaten by competing applies the theory to evolution, strategies, thus giving animals the sexual biology, and life cycles. best chance to pass on their genes. He argued that only natural","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ECOSYSTEMS 155 See also: Evolution by natural selection 24\u201331 \u25a0 The selfish gene 38\u201339 \u25a0 Predator\u2013prey equations 44\u201349 \u25a0 Ecological niches 50\u201351 \u25a0 Trophic cascades 140\u2013143 \u25a0 Biodiversity and ecosystem function 156\u2013157 Behavior arising from conflicts behavior can be quantified, balance between two or more over space and territory might emerge so biologists can work out which strategies within the system as evolutionarily stable strategies. Fruit strategies are likely to be most as a whole. The overall balance bats jostle for the best spots in the stable by using mathematical is therefore better called an trees, with alpha males driving weaker models (see box). If the model evolutionarily stable state, and bats down to lower branches. does not match the behavior not a strategy. Such a balance of animals in the real world, then emerges when all individuals have selection could upset this balance\u2014 it suggests that stability has equal fitness: they pass on their hence why an ESS is \u201cstable\u201d\u2014and not evolved. genes to the same extent. The that these behaviour patterns are state remains stable, even when genetically preprogrammed. In real rather than hypothetical there are minor changes in the ecosystems, it is not a single animal\u2019s environment. \u25a0 ESS has its roots in game theory: strategy that is stable, but the a mathematical way of working out in posturing. Which strategy the best strategy in a game. Many The hawk-dove \u201cgame\u201d would be better for passing examples of how animals behave on genes? Maynard Smith and emerge as being evolutionarily The simplest demonstration his collaborators devised a stable strategies, such as territorial of John Maynard Smith\u2019s mathematical model to provide behavior and hierarchies. For evolutionarily stable strategy the answer, and\u2014in this example, the genetically pre- (ESS) concerns a hypothetical instance\u2014being more hawkish programmed \u201crules\u201d of \u201cif resident, response to aggression known than dovish emerged as the fight and defend\u201d or \u201cif visiting, give as the hawk-dove \u201cgame.\u201d In ESS. It predicts a ratio of seven in and retreat,\u201d which would help this, individuals can either be hawks for every five doves, animals retain territory, combine hawkish and fight until badly which is equivalent to any one to make territorial behavior an ESS. injured, or dovish and posture, individual being hawkish but then retreat. Hawks will seven-twelfths of the time, and Balancing strategies outmatch doves, but could be dovish five-twelfths of the time. The payoff that an individual seriously harmed in a fight with animal gains\u2014or the price it risks another hawk. Doves routinely paying\u2014by displaying a particular escape injury, but waste time","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 156 SSTHPTAEEBCFIIULEINSTCMYTAOIOIFNNETINCAIGONSAYNSDTEMS BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION IN CONTEXT I n an age when human A phytotron built in 1968 in North activities are rapidly eroding Carolina, US, now includes 60 growth KEY FIGURE the complex mix of species in chambers, four greenhouses, and a Michel Loreau (1954\u2013) different habitats, ecologists have controlled-environment facility for increasingly focused on how studying plant diseases and insects. BEFORE biodiversity loss affects the way 1949 At the California Institute ecosystems work. If species are Michel Loreau, director of the of Technology in the US, the replaced or lost altogether, can an Centre for Biodiversity Theory first phytotron (research ecosystem remain intact\u2014or does and Modeling in Moulis, France, greenhouse) is built to study this damage ecosystem function? outlined diverse research; some how an artificial ecosystem looked more closely at species, can be manipulated. Such questions were the focus others at what makes an ecosystem of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem work. Loreau maintains that 1991 In the UK, an Ecotron, Function (BEF) conference held in a new unified ecological theory a set of experimental Paris in 2000. More than 60 leading is necessary to combat extreme ecosystems in computer- international ecologists, including controlled units, is created at Imperial College, London. AFTER 2014 Leading ecologists in the US say that the effect of diversity loss on ecosystems is at least as great as\u2014or even greater than\u2014that of fire, drought, or other drivers of environmental change. 2015 A paper published in Nature provides evidence that biodiversity increases an ecosystem\u2019s resilience in a broad range of climate events.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ECOSYSTEMS 157 See also: Mutualisms 56\u201359 \u25a0 Keystone species 60\u201365 \u25a0 The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 Organisms and their environment 166 \u25a0 Invasive species 270\u2013273 Biodiversity loss\u2026 is likely When researching such issues, Habitat fragmentation to decrease the ability of ecologists have tended to use both ecosystems to resist the traditional observational fieldwork Barro Colorado Island in the effects of climate change. and also sophisticated mathematical Panama Canal of Central models. More recently, research America was formed in 1914, Michel Loreau has begun to incorporate the when tropical rain forest was manipulation of ecosystems flooded by damming, creating environmental challenges. That, in a more controlled way, on plots an isolated fragment of forest he says, requires the integration of land, for example, or within surrounded by water. Since of community ecology (the study of closed systems housed in giant 1946, the area has been how species interact in ecosystems) greenhouselike facilities called studied in detail by biologists with ecosystem ecology (research phytotrons. The experiments help of the Smithsonian Institution into the physical, chemical, and to establish what factors\u2014such as and elsewhere to determine biological processes that connect numbers of species, or species type the effects of this habitat organisms and their environment). and dominance\u2014affect ecosystems fragmentation: species in the long term. Their findings diversity on the island has Complex cycles show that the effects of biodiversity declined, and top predators are Scientists of both disciplines firmly on ecosystem functions are among the most vulnerable believe that biodiversity, especially complex. While the most diverse species. In the US, studies of species and genetic diversity, is ecosystems tend to be the most habitat fragmentation and its an important driver of ecosystem productive, their success also effects on diversity in the functioning. Ecosystems are depends on climate and soil fertility. Florida Keys led to Robert powered by an input of energy and MacArthur and E.O. Wilson\u2019s recycling of nutrients: plants and There is more to be learned seminal Theory of Island animals grow, die, and decompose, about how plant diversity affects Biogeography (1967). returning nutrients to the soil soil processes, the role of microbe and restarting the cycle. These biodiversity in the soil, and the From such environments, processes depend on the species effects of mutualistic species, such planners have learned within the ecosystems, which in as flowering plants and pollinating important lessons about how turn depend upon one another as insects. Much has been achieved, to conserve species in isolated they interact\u2014as predators and but questions remain, and the patches of habitat\u2014sometimes prey, for example. Many ecologists unifying theory that Loreau is in the midst of cities\u2014that are argue that a large variety of seeking has still to bedevised. \u25a0 set aside as reserves. Barro complementary species are needed Colorado, and places like it, to keep an ecosystem working and One of the distinctive and have also provided vital make it resilient to change. Others fascinating features of opportunties for study, where say that a few key species may be ecologists can explore how more important to stop ecosystems ecological systems is their changing species diversity from collapsing. extraordinary complexity. affects the functioning of an ecosystem at every level. Michel Loreau","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS IEONNRAVGCIARHNOAISNN","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS MMGISENNGT","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 160 INTRODUCTION Alexander von Humboldt The earliest forms Andreas Schimper shows Frederic Clements coins sets out for Latin America, of ecological survey how the link between a the term \u201cclimax plant\u2019s physiology and on an expedition that lays are conducted in external conditions community\u201d for the the groundwork for modern studies of wild fish is key to plant ecology. process of stabilization by Stephen A. Forbes. over time in ecological plant geography. communities. 1799 1880S 1898 1916 1845 1895 1899 Pierre-Fran\u00e7ois In showing how plants The changing vegetation Verhulst formulates an are related to their of sand dunes inspires environments, Johannes Henry Chandler equation to predict Warming unites the fields of Cowles\u2019 idea of population growth. botany and ecology. primary succession. The distribution of organisms represented the true birth of the While studying the vegetation through space and time is field of ecology. Pioneers included growing on sand dunes along the a fundamental interest of American naturalist Stephen A. shore of Lake Michigan in the ecology. Early in the 19th century, Forbes, who studied wild fish 1890s, American botanist Henry Prussian explorer Alexander von populations in the 1880s, and Chandler Cowles realized that there Humboldt, a founding father of Danish botanist Johannes was a succession of plant species, ecology, made detailed studies of Warming, who examined the with \u201cpioneer\u201d plants being plant geography in Latin America. interaction between plants and replaced by others, which were in Philip Sclater described the global their environment and introduced turn themselves supplanted. Fellow distribution of bird species, and the idea of plant communities. American Frederic Clements used Alfred Russel Wallace did the same the term \u201cclimax community\u201d for other vertebrates, proposing six The link between climate and to describe the endpoint of this zoogeographic regions that are a region\u2019s dominant vegetation succession. In 1916, he proposed largely still in use today. type was set out by German that global vegetation patterns botanist Andreas Schimper, who could be thought of as \u201cformations,\u201d Communities produced a worldwide classification or large communities of plants\u2014 Early fieldwork concentrated on of vegetation zones in 1898. In the and the organisms that depended the distribution and abundance early years of the 20th century, on them\u2014which reflected the of organisms, but later in the 19th ecologists devoted more attention regional climate. In relatively wet, century scientists increasingly to the interrelatedness of all temperate regions, for example, recognized that survey data could organisms within an ecosystem, deciduous forest may dominate, also throw light on interactions exemplified by Russian scientist but grassland tends to dominate between species. In a sense, this Vladimir Vernadsky\u2019s concept in drier, more temperate areas. of the biosphere.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 161 The concept of the Robert May applies James H. Brown and Mathew Leibold\u2019s \u201cecological guild\u201d is chaos theory to Robert Maurer devise the \u201cmetacommunities\u201d introduced in Richard predicting rates of concept of macroecology, concept looks at how B. Root\u2019s thesis on the growth and decline in populations of a single blue-grey gnatcatcher. animal population in which ecological patterns are analysed species disperse dynamics. and interact. across large areas. 1967 1976 1989 2004 1957 1975 1988 1991 The first satellite goes Citizen science John Odling-Smee Ilkka Hanski outlines into space, heralding enables Fred and Norah suggests that \u201cniche his metapopulation new technologies in constructors\u201d actively theory for species in wildlife tracking. Urquhart to discover change their environment. fragmented habitats. where monarch butterflies go in winter. Clements argued that these climax that \u201cexploit the same class examples, from ancient oxygen- communities were bound together of environmental resources,\u201d producing cyanobacteria that altered and could be thought of as single, regardless of how they do it. the composition of the atmosphere complex organisms. in prehistoric times, to beavers New ideas creating wetlands. Clements was soon challenged Many new ideas enriched the by American botanist Henry study of ecology in the late 20th Modern methods Gleason, who agreed that plant and early 21st centuries. The Traditionally, the task of monitoring communities could be mapped, but metapopulation concept was environmental change has been argued that since individual plant advanced by the Finn Ilkka Hanski, the responsibility of academics species have no common purpose, who argued that a population of and professional ecologists, but the idea of integrated communities a species is made up of differing, millions of interested amateurs now was invalid. His view found support dynamic components. One part of provide enormous amounts of raw in the 1950s, in the field studies of a population may become extinct, data on everything from flowering Robert Whittaker and the numerical while another thrives. The thriving dates to butterfly numbers, and research of John Curtis. element may subsequently help from the state of coral reefs to the reestablish the population that has breeding populations of birds. With In 1967, American ecologist died out. computer power to quickly process Richard Root proposed the idea of vast amounts of data, and with the \u201cguild,\u201d a group of organisms\u2014 In the process, British ecologist Earth\u2019s ecology changing faster closely related or otherwise\u2014that John Odling-Smee argued, so-called than ever, this \u201ccitizen science\u201d exploit the same resources. Later, \u201cniche-constructor\u201d species create looks set to become an invaluable ecologists James MacMahon and a more favorable environment for resource for ecology. \u25a0 Charles Hawkins refined the themselves\u2014as seen in countless definition of a guild to species","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 162 POTRHFEENSPAEHTNUITLROWESCIOTOPHNHTNICHEAECLTPSSATSTUTHDEY THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES OVER SPACE AND TIME IN CONTEXT Species are Plants and animals move distributed over time as Earth and its KEY FIGURE throughout the world. Alexander von Humboldt habitats change. (1769\u20131859) The philosophical Scientists study BEFORE study of nature where and how species 1750 Carl Linnaeus explains connects the live now but also where that the distribution of plants is determined by climate. present to the past. they were before, and what has changed. AFTER 1831\u201336 Charles Darwin The distribution, or range, of species\u2019 distributions, but the first makes various observations biological communities and to make detailed studies of this on the voyage of HMS Beagle, species varies according to aspect of zoology was the Prussian confirming that many animals many factors\u2014including latitude, polymath Alexander von Humboldt, living in one area are not found climate, elevation, habitat, isolation, who traveled to Latin America with in similar habitats elsewhere. and the species\u2019 characteristics. French botanist Aime Bonpland in The study of species distribution is 1799. Their five-year expedition 1874 British zoologist Philip called biogeography. Biogeography laid the basis of plant geography. Sclater produces a description is also concerned with how and Humboldt believed observation in of the zoogeography (the why the patterns of distribution situ to be paramount, and used geographical distribution of change over time. sophisticated instruments to make animals) of the world\u2019s birds. meticulous records of both plant Early zoologists and botanists and animal species, noting all the 1876 Alfred Russel Wallace such as Carl Linnaeus were well factors that could influence the publishes his two-volume book aware of geographical variations in The Geographical Distribution of Animals, which becomes the definitive biogeography text for the next 80 years.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 163 See also: Modern view of diversity 90\u201391 \u25a0 Animal ecology 106\u2013113 \u25a0 Island biogeography 144\u2013149 \u25a0 Big ecology 153 \u25a0 Climate and vegetation 168\u2013169 and New Zealand). The dividing line between these last two regions, which runs through Indonesia, is still known as \u201cWallace\u2019s Line.\u201d The unity of nature Plate tectonics Alexander von means the interrelationship Wallace also made some remarkable Humboldt discoveries from the fossil record. of all physical sciences. For example, he worked out that Known as the \u201cfounder of plant Alexander von early rodents had evolved in the geography,\u201d Humboldt also Humboldt Northern Hemisphere, moving via made valuable contributions Eurasia into South America. Later, to geology, meteorology, and data. This holistic approach is best in 1915, German geologist Alfred zoology. Born in Berlin in 1769, illustrated in his highly detailed map Wegener proposed the radical idea he started collecting plants, and cross section of Chimborazo that the continents of South shells, and insects at an early mountain in Ecuador. America and Africa were once age. His expedition to Latin connected, which allowed the America in 1799\u20131804 Wallace\u2019s contribution spread of tapirs and other species. encompassed Mexico, Cuba, Many 19th-century naturalists Venezuela, Colombia, and contributed to biogeographical Wegener understood that the Ecuador, and his team broke knowledge, but one of the most distribution of species was in part a the world altitude record when significant was British naturalist record of geological history. Species they climbed to 19,285ft Alfred Russel Wallace. After reading colonize new areas as conditions (5,878m) on Chimborazo. Philip Sclater\u2019s account of the global change, and over time have become distribution of bird species, Wallace separated by barriers such as Humboldt also speculated set out to do the same for other new oceans or mountain ranges. that volcanoes result from animals. He examined all the factors Today, as human-made changes to deep subterranean fissures, known at the time to be relevant, climate and the environment gather investigated the decrease in including changes in land bridges pace\u2014creating new barriers\u2014this temperature with altitude, and and the effects of glaciations. He understanding has taken on a new discovered that the strength produced maps to demonstrate and vital importance. \u25a0 of Earth\u2019s magnetic field how vegetation influenced animal decreases away from the ranges, and he summarized the Tapirs evolved in North America at poles. The 23-volume work distribution of all known families least 50 million years ago. They spread detailing his expedition set a of vertebrates. to and now live in Central and South new standard for scientific America, as well as southeast Asia, but writing, cementing his fame. Wallace then proposed six died out in North America. zoogeographic regions, which are Key works still largely in use today: the Nearctic (North America), Neotropics (South 1807 Essay on the Geography America), Palearctic (Europe, north of Plants Africa, and most of Asia), Afrotropics 1805\u20131829 Personal Narrative (south of the Sahara), Indomalaya of Travels to the Equinoctial (South and Southeast Asia), and Regions of the New Continent Australasia (Australia, New Guinea, During Years 1799\u20131804","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 164 LOOTIHFFMETTITHHVEIEERDPCTBOOUYPUAULNTLHTIANRETCYFIROEENRATISSILEITY THE VERHULST EQUATION IN CONTEXT P ierre-Fran\u00e7ois Verhulst was did not take into account a larger a Belgian mathematician population\u2019s difficulty in finding KEY FIGURES who, after reading Thomas food. He argued instead that \u201cthe Thomas Malthus Malthus\u2019s An Essay on the Principle population gets closer and closer (1766\u20131834), Pierre-Fran\u00e7ois of Population, became fascinated by to a steady state,\u201d in which the rate Verhulst (1804\u201349) human population growth. In 1845, of reproduction is proportionate to he published his own model for both the existing population and BEFORE population dynamics, which was the amount of available food. In 1798 Thomas Malthus argues later named the Verhulst equation. Verhulst\u2019s model, after the point of that populations increase maximum population growth\u2014the exponentially, based on a Although influenced by the \u201cpoint of inflection\u201d\u2014the growth common ratio, whereas food ideas of Malthus, Verhulst realized rate becomes progressively slower, supplies grow more slowly at that there was a major flaw in his gradually leveling off to reach the a constant rate, leading to predictions. Malthus had claimed \u201ccarrying capacity\u201d of an area\u2014the potential food shortages. that human population tends to number of individuals it can sustain. increase geometrically, doubling When visualized, Verhulst\u2019s model 1835 Belgian statistician at regular time intervals. Verhulst produces an S-shaped curve, which Adolphe Quetelet suggests thought this to be too simplistic, was later called a logistic curve. that population growth tends reasoning that the Malthus model to slow down as population density increases. The hypothesis of Practical demonstrations geometric progression Verhulst\u2019s model was ignored for AFTER can hold only in very several decades, partly because he 1911 Anderson McKendrick, special circumstances. himself was not entirely convinced. working as an army physician, Pierre-Fran\u00e7ois Verhulst However, in 1911, Scottish army applies the Verhulst equation physician and epidemiologist to bacteria populations. Anderson McKendrick used the logistic equation to forecast 1920 American biologist growth in populations of bacteria. Raymond Pearl proposes the Then, in 1920, Verhulst\u2019s equation Verhulst equation as a \u201claw\u201d was adopted and promoted in of population growth. America by Raymond Pearl. Pearl conducted experiments with fruit flies and hens. He gave a constant quantity of food to fruit","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 165 See also: Distribution of species over space and time 162\u2013163 \u25a0 Metapopulations 186\u2013187 \u25a0 Metacommunities 190\u2013193 \u25a0 Overpopulation 250\u2013251 laid fewer eggs and, as their fertility rate declined, the rate of population growth slowly stabilized. Biologists are at the Variable strategies Thomas Malthus present time in no The two key variables in Verhulst\u2019s way likely to suffer equation are the maximum capacity Malthus was born in Surrey, ostracism if they of a species to reproduce (r), and the UK, in 1766, the seventh child venture to study carrying capacity of the area (K). of a prosperous family. After human problems. Organisms are either r-strategists studying languages and Raymond Pearl or K-strategists. R-strategists, such mathematics at the University as bacteria, mice, and small birds, of Cambridge, he took a post flies kept in a bottle. Initially, their reproduce rapidly, mature early, as curate of a rural church. In fertility rate increased. However, and have a relatively short life. 1798, he published an essay as the population density grew, K-strategists, such as humans, arguing that the rate of competition for resources increased, elephants, and giant redwood increase in human populations and eventually reached a bottleneck. trees, have a slower reproduction outstrips much steadier rises After this, the flies\u2019 fertility rate rate, take longer to mature, and in food production, leading to dropped; their numbers continued tend to live longer. Ecologists inevitable starvation. Malthus to increase but slowly, and generally study r-strategists, which are often went on to publish six further the population level stabilized. found in unstable environments, editions of the essay, and he to assess risks to their necessary made a number of visits to Similarly, Pearl found that high reproduction levels, and study Europe to gather population when the number of hens in a pen K-strategists in more predictable data. In 1805, he was appointed increased, the birds struggled to environments to ensure long-term Professor of History and find enough food. As the space species survival. \u25a0 Political Economy at the East between them reduced, the hens India Company College in Fruit flies are small, common flies that Hertfordshire. He became are attracted to ripe fruit and vegetables. increasingly involved in They are popular for laboratory studies debate about economic policy, because they reproduce so quickly and and criticized the Poor Laws are easy to cultivate. for causing inflation and failing to improve life for the poor. Malthus died in 1834. Key works 1798 An Essay on the Principle of Population 1820 Principles of Political Economy 1827 Definitions in Political Economy","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 166 IKTTSHHNAEEOWTFNHIALROTESURDTROGRAUEELGOQHOFURISDIETRE ORGANISMS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT IN CONTEXT T he notion of a naturalist\u2014 analysis and experiments. These someone who studies rounded ecological surveys created KEY FIGURE organisms in the natural a picture of the natural order within Stephen A. Forbes world\u2014dates back to ancient an environment. By shedding light (1844\u20131930) Greece. Aristotle made copious on the interrelated effects of its observations of wildlife, and his plant and animal life, they could BEFORE work laid the foundations for later also help explain the distribution of 1799\u20131804 Alexander von naturalists. It was not until the species and variations over time. \u25a0 Humboldt pioneers the field 19th century, however, that the of biogeography in his travels potential of such surveys was Satellite images enable ecologists to in Latin America. really understood. observe large-scale changes easily. The green areas in this image of the Caspian 1866 German naturalist The new study of ecology Sea are evidence of algal growth\u2014the Ernst Haeckel coins the term As naturalists undertook longer product of nutrient enrichment. \u201cecology\u201d to describe the study field trips, the global distribution of organisms in relation to of species became more apparent, their environments. and the concept of ecology as a science gained traction. 1876 After traveling extensively, British naturalist One of the first scientists to Alfred Russel Wallace employ ecological methods was publishes The Geographical American biologist Stephen A. Distribution of Animals. Forbes. In the 1880s, while studying fish in a Wisconsin lake, AFTER he realized that survey data could 1890s Frederic Clements be interpreted to give a picture of proposes the notion of interactions between different ecological communities. species\u2014not just their abundance. Forbes extended the scope of the 1895 In Ecology of Plants conventional survey, combining Johannes Warming describes practical fieldwork with theoretical the impact of the environment on the distribution of plants. See also: Classification of living things 82\u201383 \u25a0 Animal ecology 106\u2013113 \u25a0 Biodiversity and ecosystem function 156\u2013157","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 167 POTLINMAAENSTDCSIFALFLIEEVREENT THE FOUNDATIONS OF PLANT ECOLOGY IN CONTEXT P lant ecology examines how That land is a community plants interact with one is the basic concept KEY FIGURE another and with their of ecology. Johannes Eugenius environments. Danish botanist Aldo Leopold Warming (1841\u20131924) Johannes Eugenius Warming first brought the sciences of botany and American ecologist BEFORE ecology together in his book The 1859 Charles Darwin\u2019s Ecology of Plants in 1895. He biosphere, the parts of its surface detailed descriptions of plants described how plants react to their and atmosphere where all living and animals in their natural surroundings, and how their life organisms exist and interact. environment mark the start of cycles and structures relate to where an appreciation of what is later they grow. The book introduced the Plants are sensitive barometers termed \u201cecology.\u201d concept of plant communities, and of change within an environment. outlined how a group of species The study of their anatomy, AFTER interact and develop in reponse to physiology, distribution, and 1935 British botanist Arthur the same local conditions. abundance, as well as their Tansley publishes an article in interactions with other organisms Ecology in which he defines Plants and ecosystems and their response to environmental the term \u201cecosystem.\u201d For many years, plant ecology factors, such as soil conditions, and animal ecology were studied hydrology, and pollution, can 1938 American botanists separately, but in the early 20th provide invaluable information John Weaver and Frederic century a more connected about the entire ecosystem. \u25a0 Clements further develop the perspective emerged. Important concepts of plant communities theories on plant communities and and succession. succession\u2014the process by which an ecological community changes 1995 David Attenborough\u2019s over time\u2014were established during television documentary \u201cThe this time period. In 1926, Russian Private Life of Plants\u201d depicts geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky plants as dynamic influencers introduced the idea of Earth\u2019s of their environment. See also: Climate and vegetation 168\u2013169 \u25a0 Ecological succession 170\u2013171 \u25a0 The biosphere 204\u2013205 \u25a0 Endangered habitats 236\u2013239 \u25a0 Deforestation 254\u2013259","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 168 DTAHIMFEOFENCRGAEUPNSLCEAESNSOTSF CLIMATE AND VEGETATION IN CONTEXT T hat different plants grow \u201cFlowering stones\u201d (Lithops) are in different climates was native to southern Africa, their thick, KEY FIGURE likely common knowledge fleshy leaves well suited to dry, rocky Andreas Schimper for as long as agriculture has conditions. Related species also occur (1856\u20131901) existed; many cultures have in similar arid habitats in the US. traded plants for thousands of years. BEFORE However, the clear link between a plant physiology (the functioning of 1737 Carl Linnaeus\u2019s Flora region\u2019s dominant vegetation type plants), it became the foundation of Lapponica includes details of and climate was not categorically the study of plant ecology. Schimper the geographical distribution spelled out until German botanist explained that the connection of Lapland plants. Andreas Schimper published his between the structures of plants ideas on plant geography in 1898. and the external conditions they 1807 Alexander von Humboldt faced in different places was the publishes his seminal Essay Botanists such as Carl Linnaeus key to what he described as on the Geography of Plants. and Alexander von Humboldt had \u201cecological plant-geography.\u201d written about plant distributions in Vegetation was divided into broad AFTER the 18th and early 19th centuries. tropical, temperate, arctic, 1916 In Plant Succession: The widely traveled Humboldt mountain, and aquatic zones, then an Analysis of the understood that climate was one subdivided further, according to Development of Vegetation, of the key factors governing where Frederic Clements describes plants did and did not grow. how communities of species Schimper went one step further are indicators of the climate than Humboldt by explaining in which they have matured. that similar vegetation types arise under similar climatic conditions 1968 \u201cThe Role of Climate in different parts of the world. in the Distribution of He then produced a global Vegetation,\u201d by American classification of vegetation zones geographers John Mather that reflected this observation. and Gary Yoshioka, explains how temperature and rainfall Schimper\u2019s 1898 book Plant- alone are not enough to define geography upon a Physiological plant distributions. Basis ran to 870 pages and is one of the largest ecology monographs written by a single author. A synthesis of plant geography and","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 169 See also: Evolution by natural selection 24\u201331 \u25a0 Ecophysiology 72\u201373 \u25a0 The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 The foundations of plant ecology 167 \u25a0 Biogeography 200\u2013201 \u25a0 Biomes 206\u2013209 \u2026 the time is not far contrivances for regulating the were linked by warm temperatures distant when all species passage of water.\u201d To illustrate this, and year-round moisture\u2014traits of he chose a type of vegetation with what he called a tropical rain forest. of plants and their tough leaves, short internodes (the geographical distribution distances between the leaves along Although the broad geographic a stem), and leaf orientation parallel divisions devised by Schimper still will be well known. or oblique to direct sunlight. This hold true, there is now a better Andreas Schimper type grew in various parts of the understanding of how vegetation world, where arid conditions meant develops in response to many the prevailing climate. For example, that water was scarce. The name different stimuli beyond simple tropical vegetation was divided into Schimper gave to these plants\u2014 climatic differences. For example, savanna, thorn-forest, woodland, sclerophyll, from the Greek words measures of potential water tropical rain forest, or woodland skleros (\u201chard\u201d) and phullon (\u201cleaf\u201d)\u2014 evaporation into the atmosphere, with a pronounced dry season, is still used today. water surplus, and water deficit, according to whether the climate which can be combined in a was wet all year round, seasonally Epiphytes, plants that grow on moisture index, are more useful wet, or mostly dry. the surface of other plants and determinants of plant distribution derive their moisture and nutrients than simple temperature and from the air or rain, also fascinated rainfall figures. \u25a0 Schimper. He observed epiphytes such as Spanish moss growing in Like other epiphytes, Spanish moss the southern US and the Caribbean lives on other species but draws water islands and similar species in and nutrients from the air rather than South America, South Asia, and from its host. It thrives in tropical and southeast Asia. He found that they subtropical environments. Adaptations for extremes Schimper made a close study of plant physiology\u2014the structures of plants and how they had adapted to varying temperature and moisture conditions. He was particularly interested in plants growing in extreme climatic conditions. Salty environments, for example, require plants to survive high levels of soil and water salinity. Schimper found that vegetation growing on the coastal mangroves of Brazil, on Caribbean and Sri Lankan beaches, and in sulfur-emitting volcanic craters in Java, were similarly tolerant to salt. Schimper also studied how plants coped in the challenging conditions of arid environments. He found that plants growing in hot, dry places had evolved \u201cvaried","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 170 IFAHIATVHEIGNRAESATEED ECOLOGICAL SUCCESSION IN CONTEXT T he Indiana Dunes comprise 15,000 years ago, there would only a windswept section of have been bare sand around Lake KEY FIGURE shifting sand along the Michigan\u2019s shore. Vegetation developed Henry Chandler Cowles southern shore of Lake Michigan, in a physical gradient, with sand nearest (1869\u20131939) US. In 1896, American botanist the water and forests farthest back. Henry Chandler Cowles saw these BEFORE dunes for the first time, and so decomposing matter created 1825 Adolphe Dureau de began his career in the emerging favorable conditions for other plants. la Malle coins the term field of ecology. Dunes are among As these new plants died, even more \u201csuccession\u201d when describing some of the planet\u2019s least stable plants could grow. new growth in forest cuttings. landforms, and therefore changes to their ecology happen relatively Based on his observations, 1863 Austrian botanist quickly. As Cowles walked among Cowles developed the idea of Anton Kerner publishes a the dunes, he noticed that when ecological succession, although study of plant succession in certain plants died off, their groundwork for the concept had the Danube river basin. been laid by earlier naturalists. In AFTER 1916 Frederic Clements suggests that communities settle into a climax, or stable equilibrium, at the end of a succession period. 1977 Ecologists Joe Connell and Ralph Slatyer argue that succession occurs in diverse ways, highlighting facilitation (preparing the way for later species), tolerance (of lower resources), and inhibition (resisting competitors).","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 171 See also: Field experiments 54\u201355 \u25a0 The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 Climax community 172\u2013173 \u25a0 Open community theory 174\u2013175 \u25a0 Biomes 206\u2013209 \u25a0 Romanticism, conservation, and ecology 298 Primary succession The process of primary succession begins in barren environments such as bare rock. Hardy species, usually lichens, appear first and then give way to a stable climax community of more complex and diverse life forms over hundreds of years. Soil Bare rock Lichens Small annual Grasses and Grasses, Shade- plants and perennials shrubs, tolerant trees lichens and shade- intolerant trees Hundreds of years Pioneer species Intermediate Climax species community an 1860 address to members of the include pioneer plants (often lichens resulting from the pioneer species, Middlesex Agricultural Society, and mosses), followed by grassy shrubs and oak, pine, and hickory Massachusetts, Henry David plants, small shrubs, and trees. trees will begin to grow. As the Thoreau had stated: \u201cThough I do trees grow higher, shading out more not believe that a plant will spring Life after disturbance of the underbrush, the grasses are up where no seed has been, I have Secondary succession occurs after a replaced by plants able to survive great faith in a seed.\u201d disturbance that destroys plant life, with low sunlight, and, after around such as a flood or a fire. The plant 150 years, the forest once more Growth of an ecoystem life reestablishes itself and develops resembles the prefire community. \u25a0 French geographer Adolphe Dureau into an ecosystem similar to the one de la Malle is regarded as the first that existed before the disturbance. I \u2026 found indisputable person to use the term \u201csuccession\u201d The stages of secondary succession evidence (a) that forests with reference to ecology when he are similar to those of primary succeeded prairie, and witnessed the progression of plant succession, although the ecosystem communities after all the trees may start at different points in the (b) that prairie had were removed from a forest. Cowles process, depending on the level of succeeded forest. provided a more formal articulation damage caused by the trigger. Henry Allan Gleason of his ecological succession theory, in The Ecological Relations of the A common example of secondary American ecologist Vegetation on the Sand Dunes of succession occurs after a wildfire in Lake Michigan, published in 1899. oak and hickory forests. Nutrients In this seminal paper, he proposed from burned plants and animals the idea of primary succession\u2014 provide the right conditions for the gradual growth of an ecosystem growth of annual plants. Pioneer originally largely devoid of plant life. grasses soon follow. After several The stages of primary succession years, due at least in part to the environmental and soil changes","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 172 MTAHRAEITSUCEROSEM,SGM,RAUONNWDITSDY,IES CLIMAX COMMUNITY IN CONTEXT In every region, plants The term \u201cclimax community\u201d grow and develop was first proposed in 1916 KEY FIGURE through a series by American botanist Frederic Clements of successions. Frederic Clements. He used it to (1874\u20131945) At each stage, they describe an enduring ecological become bigger, community that has reached a BEFORE more complex, and steady state, such as a naturally 1872 German botanist interconnected. stable forest of old-growth trees August Grisebach classifies that has not undergone or been the world\u2019s vegetation patterns Eventually the vegetation subjected to any unnatural in relation to climate. takes on the most changes, such as logging. 1874 British philosopher complicated interconnected Regional communities Herbert Spencer suggests that form the climate will allow. In the 19th century, German the human population can be botanists August Grisebach and thought of as a giant organism. Once a community Oscar Drude were among those reaches this who recognized that patterns of 1899 In the US, Henry Cowles vegetation around the world reflect proposes that vegetation \u201cclimax,\u201d vegetation factors such as climate variations. develops in stages, a process stops changing. It was clear, for example, that the called succession. typical vegetation in a wet, tropical climate was very different to that in AFTER a dry, temperate climate. Then in a 1926 US ecologist Henry landmark paper in 1899, American Gleason argues that a climax botanist Henry Cowles described community is a coincidental how plants colonized sand dunes collection of individuals. around Lake Michigan in stages\u2014 or \u201csuccessions\u201d\u2014of increasing 1939 British botanist Arthur size and complexity. Tansley suggests there is not a single climax community but In an influential book, Plant \u201cpolyclimaxes\u201d responding to Succession (1916), Frederic various factors. Clements developed Cowles\u2019s idea, which he combined with the biogeographic thinking of the two","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 173 See also: The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 The distribution of species over space and time 162\u2013163 \u25a0 Ecological succession 170\u2013171 \u25a0 Open community theory 174\u2013175 \u25a0 The ecological guild 176\u2013177 \u25a0 Biomes 206\u2013209 The Sonora Desert is often seen as an example of a climax community. It has both winter and summer rains, so its unique plants, which include the tall saguaro cactus, are unusually lush. German botanists to produce stages of growth, he argued that for identifying such a community, a theory of the development of it can be considered as a single offered by American botanist Frank natural communities. complex organism. A community Egler in the 1950s, was never grows toward a climax in the claimed. Despite the difficulties, Clements suggested that the same way that an individual ecologists continued to use the way to understand patterns of develops through life stages. theory of a climax community to vegetation across the world is Clements expanded the idea to decide how to respond to invasive to think in terms of \u201cformations.\u201d embrace all organisms in a \u201cbiome\u201d species that threatened to disturb A formation is a large, natural that comprised \u201call the species of an established native community, community of plants dominated plants and animals at home in a and in recent decades Clements\u2019s by a range of life forms that reflects particular habitat.\u201d From this, ideas have regained support. the regional climate. In each region, the idea of the ecosystem as a plants go through stages or \u201csuperorganism\u201d later developed. Succession remains a core successions until they reach the principle of ecology. In general, most complex, highly developed A fluctuating process early succession phases consist of form of vegetation possible. Once Clements\u2019s ideas were challenged fast-growing and well-dispersed it finally reaches this climax, the from the start, although the idea of species that are replaced by more community stabilizes, in what a \u201csteady state\u201d proved influential competitive species. Initially, was later termed a \u201csteady state,\u201d and dominated thinking about ecologists thought that ecological and stops changing. ecosystems up until the 1960s. succession ended in what they However, scientists realized that described as the climax phase, Clements then proposed that communities change constantly in when the ecosystem reached a climax communities are bound response to conditions, and it is stable equilibrium. However, it together. Although an ecological almost impossible to observe a true is now accepted that ecological community is made up of a climax community. A $10,000 prize succession is a dynamic process multitude of plants at different that is constantly in flux. \u25a0 For Clements, climates are like genomes, and vegetation is like an organism whose characteristics its genome determines. Christopher Elliott Philosopher of science","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 174 IBASUNNTAOASTSCAOONCINIOACRTIIGDOEANNNCISEM OPEN COMMUNITY THEORY IN CONTEXT Plants grow according to There is no evidence of their individual needs integrated development KEY FIGURE Henry Allan Gleason between plants (1882\u20131975) An ecological They grow randomly, BEFORE community is not influenced only by the 1793 Alexander von Humboldt environmental conditions uses the word \u201cassociation\u201d to an organism sum up the range of plant types in a particular habitat. W hen American plant could see none of the integration ecologist Frederic proposed by Clements. Instead, 1899 In the US, Henry Cowles Clements proposed the Gleason believed that groups of states that vegetation develops idea of climax communities in 1916, plants were random growths in stages, in a process he calls he envisioned the community as a of individuals and species, plant succession. superorganism in which all plants responding to local conditions. and animals interact to develop the 1916 Frederic Clements posits community. A year later, American Individual needs the idea of a climax community plant ecologist Henry Gleason Gleason maintained that the as a single organism. dismissed the idea; he argued that changes that occur during plant plant species have no common succession, as the composition AFTER purpose but merely pursue their of a community evolves, are 1935 Arthur Tansley coins own individual needs. Gleason\u2019s not integrated stages, as in the the term \u201cecosystem.\u201d hypothesis became known as the development of a single organism. \u201copen community\u201d theory. The Rather, they are a combination of 1947 Robert H. Whittaker dispute initiated a debate that still responses from individual species begins field studies that will rages in ecological circles today. as they seek to meet their own refute Clements\u2019s holistic idea needs within a locality. \u201cEvery of plant communities. Gleason did not deny that plant species of plant,\u201d Gleason argued, communities could be mapped and \u201cis a law unto itself.\u201d Gleason also 1959 John Curtis boosts their interactions identified, but he Henry Gleason\u2019s reputation with numerical studies of prairie plant communities.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 175 See also: The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 The distribution of species over space and time 162\u2013163 \u25a0 Ecological succession 170\u2013171 \u25a0 Climax community theory 172\u2013173 \u25a0 The ecological guild 176\u2013177 \u25a0 Biomes 206\u2013209 Diseases such as American chestnut blight challenge the idea of a fully integrated climax community, as the loss of the dominant tree species should cause the entire ecosystem to collapse. denied that there is any endpoint or need not worry too much about during the 1930s as holism became climax community; he believed that disturbing the balance of the progressively supported by the idea communities are always changing. natural environment\u2014because of the interactive \u201cecosystem.\u201d there is no balance. Gleason\u2019s ideas Changing opinions were therefore forgotten in the Nonetheless, as ecologists Gleason\u2019s argument with Clements enthusiasm for developing ecology continued to study the world, they caused quite a stir at the time. as a science. He became so found more and more flaws in Clements seemed to be creating an frustrated that he gave up ecology Clements\u2019s theory. In the 1950s, the overview in which natural patterns work of American plant ecologists of vegetation were determined by Henry Allan Gleason Robert H. Whittaker and John Curtis clear rules, just as in Newtonian showed how impossible it was to science the movement of the planets Born in 1882, Henry Gleason identify communities as neat units is dictated by incontrovertible laws. studied biology at the University of holistic theory, and that the real Clements and his supporters were of Illinois. He held faculty posts world was more nuanced and able to look at the bigger picture, and conducted acclaimed early complex. When it comes to studying while Gleason was viewed as a ecological research in Sand ecosystems in the field, Gleason\u2019s reductionist, myopically intent on Ridge State Forest, Illinois. In ideas seem to provide a better fit. the details and challenging the the 1920s, Gleason\u2019s theory of entire idea of ecology as a science individualistic\u2014rather than In the ensuing decades, while controlled by laws. holistic\u2014plant communities was environmentalists continue to not accepted by ecologists. This champion holistic ideas, ecologists Gleason appeared to be saying rejection led Gleason to abandon have also increasingly incorporated that there are no patterns in nature: ecology in the 1930s. He had Gleason\u2019s concepts into their work. it is all random. Worse still, he was long held posts at the New York He is now considered to be one accused by some of justifying Botanical Garden and became of the most significant figures in exploitative farming, since his famed for his work on plant 20th-century ecology. \u25a0 ideas seemed to imply that man classification. With botanist Arthur Cronquist, he co-wrote a definitive guide to the plants of the northeastern US. He retired in 1950 but continued to write and study. He died in 1975. Key works 1922 \u201cOn the Relation between Species and Area\u201d 1926 \u201cThe Individualistic Concept of the Plant Association\u201d","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 176 ITTANHHGAEARITSROEIUMEXPNIPLVOLAIFORRISOTWPNEMACYEINEST THE ECOLOGICAL GUILD IN CONTEXT E cologists have long sought into its dry, scrubby chaparral to understand how species environment. The thrasher\u2019s KEY FIGURE in a community interact to \u201cniche\u201d describes the aspects Richard B. Root (1936\u20132013) exploit resources. A key concept of its habitat for which it is in the explanation of this interplay suitably adapted. BEFORE is the idea of guilds, first developed 1793 Alexander von Humboldt by American biologist and ecologist Root observed that the Blue- uses the word \u201cassociation\u201d to Richard B. Root in 1967. gray Gnatcatcher feeds on insects describe the mix of plant types that live on oak leaves. By within a particular habitat. Root had researched the way analyzing stomach contents, he the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher exploits showed that several other birds 1917 In the US, Joseph its ecological niche for his doctoral Grinnell coins the term \u201cniche\u201d thesis. The concept of ecological The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is a to describe how a species fits niches dates back to 1917, when member of a guild of small birds that into its environment. American biologist Joseph Grinnell eat insects living on oak trees. Other used the term to describe how members of the guild include Hutton\u2019s 1935 British botanist the California Thrasher fitted Vireo and Oak Titmouse. Arthur Tansley identifies ecoystems\u2014integrated biotic communities\u2014as fundamental units of ecology. AFTER 1989 In the US, James MacMahon suggests that it does not matter how ecological guild members use resources. 2001 Argentinian ecologists Sandra Diaz and Marcelo Cabido propose grouping species that have a similar effect on their environment.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 177 See also: Evolution by natural selection 24\u201331 \u25a0 Predator\u2013prey equations 44\u201349 \u25a0 Optimal foraging theory 66\u201367 \u25a0 Animal ecology 106\u2013113 \u25a0 Open community theory 174\u2013175 \u25a0 Niche construction 188\u2013189 \u25a0 Metacommunities 190\u2013193 also consume oak-leaf insects Different These species Species and proposed that these oak-leaf species may are linked that feeding birds could be grouped into by their a \u201cguild\u201d\u2014the \u201coak-foliage gleaners exploit shared share a guild\u201d\u2014because they exploited the the same resource. resource same resource. resource. can be grouped Shared resources in a guild. Root defined a guild as a group of species that \u201cexploit the same class The guild concept was a major Richard B. Root of environmental resources in a breakthrough in thinking about similar way.\u201d It does not matter connections between organisms American biologist and whether species in a guild are in ecosystems. The theory implied ecologist Richard Root was related or not\u2014all that matters is that the entire functioning of an born in Dearborn, Michigan, how they use their environment. ecosystem could be understood by in 1936. He grew up on a farm, They do not even have to occupy identifying all the guilds within it. exploring nature and longing the same niche; they just have to Although that was potentially a to know \u201chow the woods use the same resource. huge undertaking, ecologists have worked.\u201d By the time he now managed to identify many completed his doctorate at the Guilds are typically identified more guilds that confirm links University of Michigan, Root by the food resource they have in between species. For example, was already a knowledgeable common, although it could be any the birds of North America can ecologist. His 1967 thesis on other resource that they share. be grouped into guilds of gleaners, the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, in Sharing the same resource means excavators, hawkers, aerial chasers, which he introduced the key that guild members often compete and scavengers. concept of the guild, cemented with one another, but they are not his reputation. Root was necessarily in constant competition. Broad associations invited to join the staff of For example, although they may In the rush to identify guilds, there Cornell University, where he compete for the same food, on other was some confusion over just what taught biology and ecology. occasions they might cooperate to the term meant. By the 1980s, the While there, he researched deal with predators. American ecologists Charles the relationship between Hawkins and James MacMahon arthropods (a large group of \u2026does it matter that a felt the need to redefine the term. invertebrates including insects particular insect species They argued that the words \u201cin a and arachnids) and goldenrod is captured by a silken similar way\u201d should be dropped flowers. Root received many spider web as opposed from Root\u2019s original definition. It awards during his career, does not matter, they maintained, including the Ecological to a bird\u2019s beak? whether an organism removes a Society of America\u2019s Eminent Charles Hawkins and tree leaf to build a nest or for food. Ecologist award in 2003 It is the resource of the tree leaf and its Odum award in 2004. James MacMahon that matters rather than the way it is utilized. Either way, the leaf- Key works users belong to a common guild because they are exploiting the 1967 \u201cThe niche exploitation same resource. \u25a0 pattern of the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher\u201d","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS THE CITIZEN NVEOTWLOURKNDTEPEENEDRS OSN CITIZEN SCIENCE","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 180 CITIZEN SCIENCE IN CONTEXT North American migration pathways KEY FIGURES KEY Migratory birds Fred Urquhart (1911\u20132002), Pacific flyway in North America Norah Urquhart (1918\u20132009) Central flyway use paths that can BEFORE Mississippi flyway be divided into four 1883 The Bird Migration Atlantic flyway north\u2013south zones, and Distribution recording called flyways\u2014Pacific, program starts in the US. Central, Mississippi, 1966 The North American and Atlantic. Citizen Breeding Birds Survey, scientists can play a conducted by volunteers, key role in recording begins in Maryland. the birds as they stop AFTER to feed or rest along 2007 The Global Biodiversity the way, during their Information Facility (GBIF) flights north in spring launches a global online portal and south in fall. for collecting data on plants and animals from citizen C itizen science is research migration of birds, the Scottish scientists and professionals. and observation carried enthusiasts using lighthouses 2010 The eBird online project, out by nonprofessional around the coast as observation created in the US in 2002 by individuals, teams, or networks posts. Then, in the early 1880s, the the Cornell Laboratory of of volunteers, often in partnership idea of collective observation was Ornithology for volunteers to with professional scientists. It is extended onto a national scale by report real-time bird sightings, based on an appreciation that the American ornithologist Wells becomes a global survey. scientific community should be Cooke, who began a project to show responsive to the environmental arrival dates for migratory North Butterflies\u2014millions concerns of society as a whole, and American birds and provide upon millions \u2026 carpeted an understanding that citizens can evidence for migration pathways. produce reliable scientific evidence Cooke\u2019s project ran until World War the ground in their that leads to greater scientific II, gathering 6 million data cards flaming myriads on this knowledge. The involvement of on more than 800 bird species and Mexican mountainside. ordinary people allows research utilizing 3,000 volunteers at its bodies to accomplish projects that peak. In 2009, the North American Fred Urqhuart would be far too expensive or time- Bird Phenology Program began consuming to run otherwise. to digitize the data from the cards, which has provided valuable Early enthusiasts evidence of changed bird migration While the term \u201ccitizen science\u201d dates and routes resulting from is relatively new, dating from the global climate change. 1980s, the concept and practice of using the public to observe the The world\u2019s longest-running natural world and record data has citizen science survey is the a long pedigree. In the 1870s, Christmas Bird Count (CBC), held small groups of ornithologists each year in the US. Christmas in Germany and Scotland began \u201cside hunts\u201d of birds were a popular to collect reports on the fall pastime in many rural districts of the US in the 19th century,","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 181 See also: A system for identifying all nature\u2019s organisms 86\u201387 \u25a0 Big ecology 153 \u25a0 The distribution of species over space and time 162\u2013163 regardless of whether the birds a tagging scheme in an attempt Fred and were suitable for eating. In 1900, to find where the insect ended its Norah Urquhart Frank Chapman, an officer of the journey after setting out from Audubon Society\u2014named after southern Canada and the northern Born in 1911, Fred Urquhart American ornithologist and painter states of the US in fall. They grew up near a railroad line on John James Audubon\u2014proposed enlisted the help of a small group the edge of Toronto, Canada, counting birds, rather than of \u201ccitizen scientists\u201d to help tag and became intrigued by the shooting them. He encouraged 27 the wings of the butterflies and monarch butterflies that laid birdwatchers to participate in the report sightings. From a dozen or their eggs close to the track. first event, and the counts then so helpers, their Insect Migration After graduating in 1937 from grew every year. In 2016\u201317, 73,153 Association, as it became known, the University of Toronto with observers submitted counts from grew to hundreds of volunteers bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s 2,536 different locations in North who persisted for years, tagging degrees in biology, Urquhart and Latin America, the Pacific, and hundreds of thousands of monarchs began to research the the Caribbean. The data on the with the message \u201cSend to Zoology, butterfly. Having taught distribution and number of birds University of Toronto.\u201d meteorology to pilots during has provided a huge data set for World War II, he returned to ecologists, allowing comparison Despite the Urquharts\u2019 best the university to lecture over time and between habitats. efforts, the trail went cold in Texas. zoology and married Norah Finally, on January 2, 1975, two Roden Patterson, another In search of the monarch amateur naturalists, Ken Brugger Toronto graduate, who joined Perhaps the most celebrated act of and Catalina Aguado, discovered his quest to find the monarch\u2019s citizen science was one that set out the butterflies\u2019 wintering site in winter home. Fred Urquhart to solve the mystery of where the montane forest north of Mexico \u276f\u276f also worked as Curator of migrating monarch butterfly went Insects and Director of in winter. In 1952, a Canadian Observations of birds made and Zoology and Paleontology at couple, zoologists Fred and Norah recorded by \u201ccitizen scientists\u201d in parks the Royal Ontario Museum. Urquhart, who had long been and gardens can provide ecologists In 1998, Fred and Norah fascinated by the butterfly, set up with vital data on many species, such Urquhart were awarded their as the European Goldfinch. nation\u2019s highest civilian award, the Order of Canada. Key works 1960 The Monarch Butterfly 1987 The Monarch Butterfly: International Traveler","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 182 CITIZEN SCIENCE Science should be dominated by amateurship instead of money-biased technical bureaucrats. Erwin Chargaff Austro-Hungarian biochemist Monarch butterflies form a cluster fall. Thousands of people their own homes, but simply to stay warm during migration. Tagging in Mexico, the US, and Canada to record what they saw in their by volunteers revealed the monarch\u2019s are helping build an ever clearer gardens, backyards, or streets. migratory routes, and continues with picture of what routes the monarch By 2018, more than 500,000 people the annual \u201cMonarch Watch.\u201d follows and how it deals with were participating, recording changing weather patterns. 7 million birds. The vast amount City. No tagged monarchs were of data gathered can now be found, however, and it was not Citizens march on compared for every year back until the following January that the More volunteer-based projects to 1979. Without public help, this Urquharts found one\u2014tagged by were launched during the 1960s would simply not be possible. two schoolboys in Minnesota the and 1970s, including the North previous August. Citizen science American Breeding Bird Survey, In 1989, the term \u201ccitizen had provided the hard evidence the British Nest Records Card science\u201d first appeared in print, that the butterflies migrated from project, and a survey of sea turtle in the journal American Birds. It North America to Mexico. Now egg laying in Japan. In 1979, the was used to describe a volunteer it is known where millions of Royal Society for the Protection of project sponsored by the Audubon monarchs spend the winter, the Birds (RSPB) launched the Big Society that sampled rain for emphasis has changed to tracking Garden Birdwatch in the UK, which acidity. The aim of the project their movements each spring and did not even require people to leave was to raise awareness of the acidification of rivers and lakes that was killing fish and invertebrates, and, indirectly, the birds that preyed on them. It was also designed to put pressure on the US government, which soon after introduced the 1990 Clean Air Act. Citizen science has also proved its worth for marine conservation. In the Bahamas, a report in 2012 on declining numbers of the queen conch, a large sea snail, led to the formation of \u201cConchservation,\u201d a campaign that encourages locals to tag conches. Another project, set up in the US in 2010, at the","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 183 University of Georgia, uses an Young volunteers at Siyeh Pass, Painting the app, the Marine Debris Tracker, in the state of Montana, record their complete picture to record sightings of debris in sightings of mountain goats for the the ocean. Understanding patterns high country citizen science project Citizen scientists are now of trash buildup in the world\u2019s seas in the Glacier National Park. the biggest global providers helps scientists to track how of data on the occurrence of it is transported by currents and introduce bias into recordings, living organisms. Data is where to concentrate removal efforts such as by the omission of a easier than ever to submit for maximum effect. species that cannot be identified. and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can process data The advent of new technology Most simple citizen science in minutes where once it has led to a proliferation of citizen tasks, though, require no training, would have taken weeks. For science projects. Online recording and some other, more complex, example, if a person records systems allow people to log procedures can be tackled after sightings of birds coming to sightings of anything from stag basic tuition. People are often a garden feeder and sends a beetles to wildflowers or migrating attracted to citizen science precisely report from a phone to Cornell birds. In the UK, for example, the because they gain new skills in the University\u2019s eBird website, the Greenspace Information for Greater process. Increasing pressure on information is compared with London (GiGL) website, created by Earth\u2019s natural environments and previous data on factors such the National Biodiversity Network, resources creates an ever greater as population numbers and allows people to submit records need for data that records presence, migration routes. More than online or by phone, adding to a absence, and change in species, 390,000 people have submitted database used by scientists working their habitats, and the wider millions of bird sightings to to conserve species and habitats. ecosystems. Projects such as eBird from nearly 5 million Zooniverse, the world\u2019s largest locations around the world. Limitations and potential citizen science platform, help This data is fed into the Global Some ecology research projects fill this need, accumulating data Biodiversity Information are beyond the reach of untrained from around 1.7 million volunteers Facility (GBIF, coordinated in amateurs because they require worldwide. Such projects will be an Denmark), which collects too high a degree of skill, or invaluable resource for conservation information on plants, animals, technology that is too complex organizations, research institutions, fungi, and bacteria. GBIF now or expensive. People unfamiliar nongovernment agencies, and contains more than 1 billion with scientific methods may also governments for years to come. \u25a0 observations, and the number is growing daily. Scientific study often relies on the collection of large quantities of data. The more data, the more Volunteer networks are representative the able to collect vast results are of reality. quantities of data, often from widespread areas. The citizen\u2019s network depends on volunteers.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 184 WPRBOEEHPPCEURONLOMATDETHUICECOHTNRAIAODOTNYTENISCOAOFMAIRCSS CHAOTIC POPULATION CHANGE IN CONTEXT C haos theory\u2014the idea that Chaos: when the present predictions are limited by determines the future, but KEY FIGURE time and the nonlinear the approximate present Robert May (1936\u2013) nature of behavior\u2014took hold in the 1960s. American meteorologist does not approximately BEFORE Edward Lorenz observed the effect determine the future. 1798 Thomas Malthus argues in weather patterns, and described that human populations will it in 1961. Since then, the theory Edward Lorenz increase at an ever-faster rate, has been applied to many sciences, inevitably causing suffering. including population dynamics. patterns at the lowest rates of growth, May found that the logistic 1845 Belgian demographist Chaotic populations equation produced erratic results Pierre-Fran\u00e7ois Verhulst argues In the 1970s, Australian scientist when the growth rate was equal to that checks to population Robert May became interested in or above 3.9. Instead of producing growth will increase in line animal population dynamics, and repeating patterns, the map with population growth itself. worked on a model to forecast plotted trajectories that appeared growth or decline over time. This completely random. May\u2019s work AFTER led him to the logistic equation. showed how a simple, constant 1987 Per Bak, Chao Tang, and Devised by Belgian mathematician equation could produce chaotic Kurt Wiesenfeld, a research Pierre-Fran\u00e7ois Verhulst, this behavior. His logistic map is now team in New York, describe equation produces an S-shaped used by demographers to track and \u201cself-organized criticality\u201d\u2014 curve on a graph\u2014showing predict population growth. \u25a0 elements within a system population growing slowly at first, interacting spontaneously then rapidly, before tapering off to produce change. into a state of equilibrium. 2014 Japanese ecologist May experimented with George Sugihari uses a chaos Verhulst\u2019s formula to create the theory approach called empirical \u201clogistic map,\u201d which showed dynamic modeling to produce the population trends on a graph. a more accurate estimate of Although it created predictable salmon numbers in Canada\u2019s Fraser River. See also: Predator\u2013prey equations 44\u201349 \u25a0 Non-consumptive effects of predators on their prey 76\u201377 \u25a0 The Verhulst equation 164\u2013165 \u25a0 Metapopulations 186\u2013187","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 185 TTTAHOKEVEBISAIGUDAPILSIICTZTAEUNRTEV,IEW MACROECOLOGY IN CONTEXT S cientists seeking faster mammal species, Brown was able ways to analyze and counter to work out the extinction risk on KEY FIGURE the many threats to plant each ridge as temperatures rose, James H. Brown (1942\u2013) and animal populations increasingly and suggest conservation priorities. turn to macroecology. The term, Enhancing fieldwork BEFORE coined by American ecologists Macroecology often supplements 1920 Swedish ecologist James Brown and Brian Maurer fieldwork and can lead to surprising Olof Arrhenius produces in 1989, describes studies that discoveries. In Madagascar, a mathematical formula for examine relationships between satellite data was used to develop the relationship between organisms and their environment models for chameleon species and area and species diversity. across large areas to explain predict them in areas beyond patterns of abundance, diversity, their known ranges. As a result, 1964 British entomologist distribution, and change. scientists investigating these areas C.B. Williams documents found several new sister species. \u25a0 patterns of species abundance, Brown had tried and tested this distribution, and diversity in methodology in the 1970s while By comparing community studies his book Patterns in the studying the potential effects of made in deserts around the world, Balance of Nature. global warming on species in cool, macroecologists can determine the moist forest and meadow habitats greatest threats to a desert species AFTER on 19 isolated ridges of the Great such as this banner-tailed kangaroo rat. 2002 British ecologists Tim Basin, in California and Utah. He Blackburn and Kevin Gaston realized it would take years of fresh argue\u2014contrary to some\u2014 fieldwork to collect enough data. that macroecology should be Instead, he used existing findings treated as a discipline distinct to draw new conclusions. First, he from biogeography. predicted how much shrinkage would occur in the area of ridge-top 2018 A team of scientists uses habitat with an assumed increase practical macroecological in temperature. Using known data methods to show that bird on the minimum area required to species living on islands have support a population of each small relatively larger brains than their mainland relatives. See also: Field experiments 54\u201355 \u25a0 Animal ecology 106\u2013113 \u25a0 Island biogeography 144\u2013149 \u25a0 Big ecology 153 \u25a0 Endangered habitats 236\u2013239","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 186 OAFPPOOPPUULLATAITOIONNS METAPOPULATIONS IN CONTEXT A species becomes A species colonizes extinct in one an empty habitat patch. KEY FIGURE habitat patch. Ilkka Hanski (1953\u20132016) Extinction and colonization are dynamic processes. BEFORE 1931 In the US, geneticist A local extinction does not signal Sewall Wright explores the the extinction of the species. influence of genetic factors on species populations. A metapopulation is a other places. The species is like a combination of separate, family whose members have moved 1933 In Australia, ecologist local populations of the to different cities yet are still Alexander Nicholson and same species. The term was coined related. The combined effect of physicist Victor Bailey develop by American ecologist Richard many populations may boost the their model of population Levins in 1969 to describe how long-term survival of the species. dynamics to describe the insect pest populations rise and fall host\u2013parasite relationship. on farm fields. Since then, its use Apart but together has expanded to cover any species A crucial aspect of metapopulation 1954 In The Distribution and broken up into local populations in theory is the level of interaction Abundance of Animals, fragmented habitats, both on land between the separate local Australian ecologists Herbert and in the oceans. populations. If the level is high, Andrewartha and Charles it is not considered to be a Birch challenge the idea that A particular species of bird, for metapopulation\u2014all the local species populations are instance, may be found in separate groups are part of one big controlled by density alone. populations in a lowland forest, in population. In a metapopulation mountain woodlands, and various AFTER 2007 American ecologist James Petranka links metapopulation theory to the metamorphosis stages of amphibians.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 187 See also: Animal ecology 106\u2013113 \u25a0 Clutch control 114\u2013115 \u25a0 Island biogeography 144\u2013149 \u25a0 Metacommunities 190\u2013193 contact between the various local leaving vacant patches for another Ilkka Hanski groups is limited, and they remain population to recolonize. Hansk partly cut off in their own local argued that there is persistent Widely seen as the father of habitat or \u201cpatch.\u201d Yet there has to balance between \u201cdeaths\u201d (local metapopulation theory, Ilkka be at least some interaction. It may extinctions) and \u201cbirths\u201d (the Hanski was born in Lemp\u00e4\u00e4l\u00e4, be just a single brave or outcast establishment of new populations Finland, in 1953. As a child, he member of one group that enters at unoccupied sites). He likened collected butterflies, and after another patch and mates with the this balance to the spread of finding a rare species, he local population there. Isolation for disease, with the susceptible and devoted his life to ecology, too long pushes local populations the infected representing in turn studying at the universities apart to the point where they can empty and occupied \u201cpatches\u201d of Helsinki and Oxford. no longer mate with one another, for disease-carrying parasites. and in time they become separate Ecologists at the time species or subspecies. Ecologists see the concept of paid little attention to the metapopulations as increasingly distribution of local species In the 1990s, Finnish ecologist important in understanding how populations, but Hanski Ilkka Hanski showed that at the species will survive, particularly realized this was crucial, core of metapopulation theory is the in the face of human influence on and spent much of his career notion that local populations are habitats. The theory helps them testing his metapopulation unstable. The metapopulation as analyze the way populations rise theory by mapping out and a whole may well be stable, but the and fall, using mathematical models recording more than 4,000 local populations are likely to rise to play out interactions, and enables habitat patches for the and fall in their individual patches them to predict how much habitat Glanville fritillary butterfly in response to inside and outside fragmentation a species can endure on the \u00c5land Islands. This influences. Some patch members before it is driven to extinction. \u25a0 work earned Hanski global may emigrate and join a much fame, and enabled him to reduced population in danger The Glanville fritillary butterfly establish the Metapopulation of extinction, giving it renewed metapopulation, in its fragmented Research Centre in Helsinki, strength\u2014a metapopulation feature habitats on Finland\u2019s \u00c5land Islands, which became one the world\u2019s known as the \u201crescue effect.\u201d Other provided the ideal subject for Ilkka leading focuses of ecological groups may completely vanish, Hanski\u2019s studies into species patches. research. Hanski died of cancer in May 2016. Key works 1991 Metapopulation Dynamics 1999 Metapopulation Ecology 2016 Messages from Islands","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 188 IOCNROWGNASHNTICIRSHUMCTSTHCETHYHAELNIWVGEOERALNDD NICHE CONSTRUCTION IN CONTEXT All organisms alter the He argued that they actively environment to cater to construct and modify their KEY FIGURE their own needs. Animals environment, and affect their own F. John Odling-Smee dig burrows, build nests, create evolution in the process: the lynx (1935\u2013) shade from the sun, and create and the hare, for example, shape shelter from the wind to provide a each other's evolution and shared BEFORE more secure environment, while environment by striving to outrun 1969 British biologist Conrad plants alter soil chemistry and cycle each other. Odling-Smee similarly Waddington writes about nutrients. When organisms modify argued that niche construction and ways in which animals change their own and each other\u2019s place \u201cecological inheritance\u201d\u2014when their environments, calling in the environment, this is \u201cniche inherited resources and conditions this \u201cthe exploitive system.\u201d construction\u201d\u2014a term coined such as altered soil chemistry are by British evolutionary biologist passed on to descendants\u2014should 1983 Richard Lewontin, an F. John Odling-Smee in 1988. be seen as evolutionary processes. American biologist, argues that organisms are active American evolutionary biologist Levels of construction constructors of their own Richard Lewontin had previously Some common examples of niche environments, in Gene, suggested that animals are not construction are obvious, while Organism, and Environment. passive victims of natural selection. others operate at a microscopic scale. Beavers build impressive AFTER Hares do not sit around dams across rivers, creating lakes 2014 Canadian ecologist Blake constructing lynxes! But and altering river courses. This Matthews outlines criteria for alters the composition of the water deciding whether an organism in the most important and materials carried downstream, is a niche constructor. sense, they do. creates new habitats for other organisms to take advantage of, Richard Lewontin and also changes the composition of the river\u2019s plant and animal communities. British biologist Kevin Laland has suggested that, while a beaver\u2019s dam is clearly of great evolutionary and ecological importance, the impact of its dung may also be significant.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 189 See also: Ecological niches 50\u201351 \u25a0 The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 Organisms and Ecosystem engineers their environment 166 \u25a0 The ecological guild 176\u2013177 Niche constructors have been Earthworms leave castings that British biologists Nancy Harrison described as \u201cecosystem make them valuable natural fertilizers. and Michael Whitehouse have also engineers,\u201d a term coined in They not only transform the soil for suggested that when birds form 1994 by scientists Clive Jones, themselves but also help plants to grow. mixed-species flocks\u2014as many do John Lawton, and Moshe outside of the breeding season\u2014 Shachak. They outlined two Earthworms are highly effective they are altering their relationship kinds of ecosystem engineers. niche constructors, constantly with competitors to find more food The first, allogenic ecosystem transforming the soil in which they resources and gain more protection engineers, change physical live. They break down vegetable from predators. The complex social materials. Take, for example, and mineral matter into particles environment they create modifies beavers building dams, small enough for plants to ingest. their own ecology and behavior. woodpeckers excavating The worm casts they secrete are nest holes, and people mining five times richer in usable nitrogen, In his explanation of niche for gravel; these activities have seven times the concentration construction, Odling-Smee pointed modify the availability of of phosphates, and are about 11 to ancient cyanobacteria, which resources for other species. times richer in potassium than the produced oxygen as a by-product of When woodpeckers abandon surrounding soil. photosynthesis more than 2 billion their holes, smaller birds and years ago. This was a key factor other animals move in. If water Similarly, microscopic diatoms in the Great Oxygenation Event, floods a gravel pit, ducks and living in seafloor sediments secrete which changed the composition dragonflies can colonize it. chemicals that bind and stabilize of Earth\u2019s atmosphere and oceans, the sand. In Canada\u2019s Bay of Fundy, massively modifying our planet's Other ecosystem engineers for example, the changes diatoms environment. The oxygen boost are autogenic, which means make to the physical state of the helped create the conditions for the that simply by growing, they seabed allow other organisms, such evolution of much more complex life provide new habitats for other as mud shrimp, to colonize it. forms\u2014including humans. \u25a0 plants and animals. A mature oak tree, for example, is a suitable environment for a broader range of insects, birds, and small mammals than an oak sapling. Likewise, a coral reef provides homes for more fish and crustaceans as it grows larger. A European Starling in Arizona, US, takes advantage of a hole abandoned by a Gila Woodpecker to make its own nest.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 190 TLCHOOACLTOALENXICSCOTHMSAMNGUENITIES IN CONTEXT METACOMMUNITIES KEY FIGURE Mathew Leibold (1956\u2013) BEFORE 1917 Arthur Tansley observes that two species of Galium plants grow differently in different soil patches. 1934 Georgy Gause develops the competitive exclusion principle stating that two species competing for the same key resource cannot coexist for long. 2001 Stephen Hubbell\u2019s \u201cneutral theory\u201d argues that biodiversity arises at random. AFTER 2006 Mathew Leibold and fellow American ecologist Marcel Holyoak refine and develop the theory of metacommunities. O ne of the limitations of traditional community ecology was that it tended to look at communities purely locally and take little account of what happens at different scales or across different places. Therefore, over the last few decades, ecologists have been developing theories of \u201cmeta\u201d communities; the concept was summed up in 2004 in a key paper led by American ecologist Mathew Leibold. The idea of metacommunities is linked to that of metapopulations. While studies of metapopulations examine the different patches where populations of the same species coexist, in metacommunity","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 191 See also: Competitive exclusion principle 52\u201353 \u25a0 The ecosystem 134\u2013137 \u25a0 The neutral theory of biodiversity 152 \u25a0 Metapopulations 186\u2013187 Mountain goats in Colorado live in a metacommunity of species in a mountain range\u2014the Rocky Mountains\u2014but within a population of goats on one single peak. theory the different patches consist of entire communities that include a number of interacting species. What is a metacommunity? feed, shelter, or breed. Differing of seemingly contradictory Metacommunities are essentially types of habitat will influence this observations. One ecologist\u2019s study, groups or sets of communities. balance between interlinked and for instance, might look at the way The communities making up a independent development. The species live and interact together metacommunity are separated in theory of metacommunities provides in a small local community. This space, but they are not completely a framework for studying how and narrowly focused study finds that isolated and independent. They why variations develop and their competition between species for interact as various species move impact on biodiversity and resources is a crucial factor in the between them. For example, a population fluctuations. workings of the community. metacommunity might consist of a Another study might look at the set of separate forest communities, Local versus regional picture across a larger community. spread across a region. The various A major advantage of looking at This macro-study discovers that species within each patch of forest communities in this spatial way competition plays virtually no habitat interact as an independent is that it may help resolve a number part. So which result is correct? \u276f\u276f community. However, certain species, including deer or rabbits, may migrate or disperse to another community in the metacommunity, moving to a different patch of forest in search of better opportunities to Wildlife crossings Many different species cross from one habitat to another. The naturally between separate idea of providing wildlife with habitat patches. This movement ways through is not new. For can be seasonal, as in annual example, fishways for fish to migrations, or prompted by bypass dams go back centuries. natural disasters, such as fire or Wildlife crossings\u2014from bridges flood, or may take place over long for bears in Canada to tunnels timespans. It creates connections for California\u2019s desert tortoises\u2014 that are often essential for the are becoming an increasingly health and survival of species and common feature of construction communities, providing renewal work. Thousands of crossings, or new resources at pivotal among them bridges, viaducts, moments. Increasingly, however, and underpasses\u2014often planted manmade barriers, such as with vegetation\u2014have been clearances for agriculture, road, built to conserve habitats and railroads, and urban sprawl, are to avoid fatal collisions between breaking up this natural interflow animals and vehicles.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 192 METACOMMUNITIES The answer may be that both are conflicting theories. It may make stochastic processes, such as the right, and the difference simply it easier, for example, to resolve spread of a species by freak storms depends on scale. The benefit of the century-old debate between the or a die-off due to an epidemic. metacommunity theory is that it \u201cdeterministic,\u201d niche-based theory It also acknowledges that regional allows ecologists to reconcile these of community ecology, in which changes can be caused by the differences. It enables them to look species diversity is determined combined effect of local ones. for explanations on both a local and by each species\u2019 ecological regional scale. niche, and \u201cstochastic\u201d (random) Finding metacommunities theory, which emphasizes the One of the problems with Leibold\u2019s A metacommunity might be a importance of chance colonization concept is that in practice it is set of half a dozen deciduous trees and ecological drift (random not so straightforward to identify within a park, with each tree an fluctuations in population sizes). the separate components of a individual community. However, metacommunity. For the fish and it could equally be all the deciduous Metacommunity theory provides other water creatures in different forests in temperate zones all around an umbrella framework for seeing lakes within a lake district, for the world. What metacommunity how deterministic and stochastic instance, each lake may clearly be theory does is allow ecologists to processes can interact to form a distinct community. However, for work at any scale, at least in theory. natural communities. It allows those birds able to fly between the ecologists to state that patterns lakes in minutes, the different lakes Umbrella framework of biodiversity are determined both are all part of the same single According to Mathew Leibold, the by local biological features, such community. This may explain why study of metacommunities brings as the balance of sun and shade in much of the continuing work and together many seemingly disparate rock pools or variations in water research on metacommunities branches of ecology and apparently quality in streams, and by regional Metacommunity perch dragonfly pond weed dragonfly lake 1 lake 2 rushes heron heron frog frog lake 3 cormorant rushes perch mosquito algae carp cormorant lake 4 lake 5 duck mosquito algae mayfly In this example of a metacommunity, arrows show how species move between lakes to feed or breed. Seeds and the spores of algae are dispersed by the wind.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ORGANISMS IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 193 Rockpools in a wave-cut platform form a metacommunity on Eysturoy in the Faroe Islands. The rockpools are separate between tides, but become joined as one when the tide comes in. for a period of time following a storm, patches of fungal fruiting bodies that live just a few days or weeks, and even pitcher plants that, after dew or rain, provide a short-lived aquatic home for both bacteria and insects. has been theoretical and abstract study and there is a vast literature Blurred communities rather than rooted in fieldwork. on island biogeography, reaching Leibold\u2019s 2004 paper acknowledged Some metacommunities are easy back to Charles Darwin\u2019s famous that the metacommunities with to identify, such as islands in an study of variations between finches blurred boundaries are perhaps the island group, or rockpools that are in the Galapagos Islands in the hardest to define. Coral reefs, for separate between tides but joined Pacific Ocean. Neatly separate example, may look neatly separate, when the tide comes in. In their patches make good subjects for but many of the species that live 2004 paper, Leibold and his study, which is why they have been among them swim freely and colleagues acknowledged that local popular with community ecologists. respond to a host of changing communities, or patches, do not But, of course, birds and many outside influences, such as always have clear boundaries that other organisms blown across by shifts in ocean currents. make them recognizably separate, the wind or washed in by the sea and that different species may ensure that even island communities Since most of the world\u2019s life respond to things happening at a are never completely isolated. This exists within such vaguely defined different scale. They identified three is why some metacommunity patches, theorists have attempted kinds of metacommunity: markedly studies focus on the space between further clarification. Leibold and separate patches; short-lived but the communities even where the his colleagues have suggested distinct patches that appear in a patches are distinct, as they are two different ways of identifying habitat from time to time at varying with ponds and lakes, and analyse metacommunities for study: size; and permanent patches with how species move between them. distinct communities embedded vague or \u201cblurred\u201d boundaries. within a \u201cmatrix\u201d habitat, such Short-lived but distinct patches as clearings in a forest rich in Distinct patches may be much harder to identify, resources; and arbitrary sampling The most obvious markedly separate simply because of their ephemeral patches in a continuous habitat, patches are islands in the ocean. nature. Nonetheless, ecologists such as a random circle of trees These are a convenient subject to have made metacommunity studies within a forest. of holes in trees that fill with water The work is still at an early stage. The world is entering a biodiversity crisis, and countless species and communities appear to be under threat from the effects of human activity. Metacommunity theory may, in time, help to provide a better understanding of how natural communities will respond, and how local changes to habitats may ripple through a region, either adversely or positively. \u25a0","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS ETAHRETLHIVI","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS NG","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 196 INTRODUCTION Louis Agassiz shows that Svante Arrhenius is the Vladimir Vernadsky\u2019s an ice sheet once covered first to argue that carbon book The Biosphere explains Switzerland, and suggests dioxide emissions can lead how atmospheric gases are that an ice age occurred in recent geological history. to global warming. created by biological processes. 1840 1896 1926 1869 1912 1935 The father of biogeography Alfred Wegener presents his Arthur Tansley coins the term Alfred Russel Wallace theory that Earth was once \u201cecosystem\u201d to describe a single landmass from an interdependent reports a clear evolutionary division in fauna species which continents community of biological and drifted apart. nonbiological components. on neighboring islands. For centuries, scientists must indicate a truly ancient origin continents were once joined and in the Western world tried for the planet\u2014an idea which Lyell had broken away. It was not until to reconcile the findings developed further in the 1830s. the 1960s that a viable mechanism of geologists and fossil hunters Soon after, Swiss-American was found for such movement. with literal interpretations of geologist Louis Agassiz proposed Geophysicists discovered patterns biblical stories about Creation that the topography of some regions of magnetic anomalies running in and the Great Flood. In 1654, for had been shaped by glaciations. parallel stripes on either side of example, Archbishop Ussher dated Hutton and Lyell also noted that ocean ridges and identified the Earth\u2019s creation to October 22, fossils of animals and plants process of seafloor spreading\u2014hot 4004 BCE. A series of discoveries vanished from the geological magma bubbling up through cracks challenged this narrative and led record. Lyell believed this to be in the oceanic crust and forming to new ideas about the dynamic evidence of extinction, challenging new crust as it cools and moves history of life on Earth. the prevailing belief that species away. This gradual process shifts were immutable. and shapes continents. Evidence in the rocks Two Scottish geologists\u2014James Fossils also offered clues to The birth of biogeography Hutton and Charles Lyell\u2014 movements of Earth\u2019s continents. In the Age of Exploration from the advanced our understanding of German meteorologist Alfred 16th century on, scientists began to Earth\u2019s age. In Theory of the Earth Wegener noted that similar fossils study the geographical distribution (1795), Hutton argued that the could be found on both sides of the of plants and animals. By the 1860s, repeated cycles of sedimentation South Atlantic, even though they Alfred Russel Wallace viewed these and erosion necessary to create were thousands of miles apart. In patterns, clearly defined by physical thousands of feet of rock strata his 1912 theory of continental drift, barriers such as mountains and Wegener cited this as evidence that","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS THE LIVING EARTH 197 In their book Bioecology, Eugene and Howard Odum James Lovelock\u2019s Gaia Frederic Clements and describe the living planet hypothesis presents Victor Shelford popularize the idea of the biome. as a global collection of Earth as a single, interlocking systems. self-regulating system. 1939 1953 1974 1947 1970 1980 Lesley Holdridge\u2019s The first Earth Day is Luis and Walter biogeographic classification celebrated, and the idea Alvarez suggest that the maps 38 life zones where that humans should view mass extinction of the dinosaurs was caused vegetation is determined Earth holistically by rain and heat. grows in popularity. by a meteor strike. seas as a key supporting argument areas at or near the surface of the Almost two centuries earlier Hutton for evolution. Wallace noted, for Earth where organic life can exist. had articulated a similar idea\u2014that example, the ocean straits that In 1926, the Russian geochemist biological and geological processes produced a sharp division between Vladimir Vernadsky explained are interlinked and that Earth could the flora and fauna of Australasia the biosphere\u2019s close interaction be viewed as a superorganism. In and Southeast Asia. with the planet\u2019s rock (lithosphere), Hutton\u2019s words, \u201cThe globe of this water (hydrosphere) and air earth is not just a machine but also With a better understanding of (atmosphere). This in turn led an organized body as it has a Earth\u2019s biogeography, 20th-century American biologist Eugene Odum regenerative power.\u201d ecologists divided the planet into to advocate a holistic approach to biomes\u2014broad communities of flora ecology. Odum argued that it was Heading for extinction? and fauna that interact in different not possible to understand a single Life has survived on Earth for habitats, such as tropical rain forests organism, or a group of organisms, billions of years, despite the ravages or tundra. Botanist Leslie Holdridge without studying the ecosystem in of five mass extinctions. However, refined the concept in 1947 with his which they live. He described this environmentalists now question life zone classification, in which he view as \u201cthe new ecology.\u201d whether it will survive another. mapped zones based on the two Indeed, some contend that a sixth crucial influences on vegetation: In 1974, British scientist James mass extinction has already started, temperature and rainfall. Lovelock advanced the Gaia as a result of human activity. Yet, hypothesis that the interaction if Lovelock\u2019s Gaia theory is correct, A \u201cwhole Earth\u201d approach of living and nonliving elements it seems likely that the planet will The word \u201cbiosphere\u201d was coined in the biosphere reveal Earth to be a endure\u2014even if humans and many by Austrian geologist Edward complex, self-regulating system that other current life forms do not. \u25a0 Suess in 1875 to signify all the perpetuates the conditions for life.","\u0420\u0415\u041b\u0418\u0417 \u041f\u041e\u0414\u0413\u041e\u0422\u041e\u0412\u0418\u041b\u0410 \u0413\u0420\u0423\u041f\u041f\u0410 \\\"What's News\\\" VK.COM\/WSNWS 198 GWTHRAEESAGTGLOPADLC\u2019OISEWR ANCIENT ICE AGES IN CONTEXT I n the early 19th century, there Earth\u2019s history has been a process were contradictory explanations of slow change, punctuated by KEY FIGURE for the development of Earth\u2019s catastrophic events. The study Louis Agassiz (1807\u201373) landforms, plants, and animals. of glaciers, and the landforms they Supporters of catastrophism argued create, informed these ideas. After BEFORE that a series of destructive shocks, observing parallel striations in rocks 1795 Scottish geologist James such as the Great Flood described in of the Swiss Alps, German\u2013Swiss Hutton argues that erratic the Bible, had re-formed the surface geologist Jean de Charpentier (or boulders (rock fragments that of the planet many times, reshaping Johann von Charpentier) postulated are different from the existing mountains, lakes, and rivers that glaciers in the Alps had once underlying rock) in the and wiping out many plant and been more extensive and had Alps were transported by animal species. In contrast, followers caused the scratches as they moved moving glaciers. of uniformitarianism contended that and their sediment cut into the rock. Earth\u2019s features were the result of Geologist Jens Esmark drew similar 1818 In Sweden, naturalist continuous and uniform natural conclusions in Norway. G\u00f6ran Wahlenburg publishes processes of erosion, sedimentation his theory that ice once (the depositing of particles carried Glacier movements covered Scandinavia. by fluid flows), and volcanism. Swiss zoologist Louis Agassiz developed Charpentier\u2019s and 1824 Danish\u2013Norwegian Detailed geological studies Esmark\u2019s ideas further. In 1837, mineralogist Jens Esmark demonstrated that neither camp he proposed that vast sheets of theorizes that glaciers were was right. They established that ice had once covered much of the once larger and thicker and northern hemisphere, from the had covered much of Norway North Pole to the Mediterranean and and the adjacent seafloor. Caspian coastlines. Agassiz also undertook some detailed studies AFTER of glacier movement in Switzerland 1938 Serbian mathematician and published his \u00c9tudes sur les Milutin Milankovic\u00b4 publishes a theory to explain the Animals enter Noah\u2019s ark in a recurrence of ice ages based depiction of the Great Flood described on changes in Earth\u2019s orbit in the Bible. Catastrophists believed that around the Sun. the Great Flood was one of the formative shocks that shaped the geology of Earth."]