Resource Competition and Community Structure by David Tilman

Resource Competition and Community Structure by David Tilman

One of the central questions of ecology is why there are so many different kinds of plants and animals. Here David Tilman presents a theory of how organisms compete for resources and the way their competition promotes diversity. Developing Hutchinson's suggestion that the main cause of diversity is the feeding relations of species, this book builds a mechanistic, resource-based explanation of the structure and functioning of ecological communities. In a detailed analysis of the Park Grass Experiments at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in England, the author demonstrates that the dramatic results of these 120 years of experimentation are consistent with his theory, as are observations in many other natural communities. The consumer-resource approach of this book is applicable to both animal and plant communities, but the majority of Professor Tilman's discussion concentrates on the structure of plant communities. All theoretical arguments are developed graphically, and formal mathematics is kept to a minimum. The final chapters of the book provide some testable speculations about resources and animal communities and explore such problems as the evolution of "super species," the differences between plant and animal community diversity patterns, and the cause of plant succession.

"Since their first monograph in population biology Princeton has regularly produced excellent innovative texts presenting to ecologists new ideas and new hypotheses to test.. [David Tilman's book] is no exception."--Naturalist

Ann P. Kinzig is Assistant Professor of Biology at Arizona State University. Stephen Pacala is Frederick D. Petrie Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. G. David Tilman is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota and the author or editor of several books, including Spatial Ecology (Princeton).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780691083025
ISBN 10	0691083029
Title	Resource Competition and Community Structure
Author	David Tilman
Series	Monographs In Population Biology
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Year published	1982-08-21
Number of pages	296
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.