Since I am not an ecologist, when I teach the ecology lecture I 'go by the book' and trust that the textbook will be reasonably accurate. But now, perhaps I should rethink the way I teach about ecological succession...What do my ecological readers think?
More like this
If you go here you will find downloadable podcasts of this conference:
Second Queensland Biohumanities Conference, Philosophy of Ecology, held 29-30th June, 2006:
My call for ecology blogs went better than expected. I expected next to nothing, but I got more than nothing -- at least enough to consider it further away from nothing than next to it.
The Ecological Society of America published a special open access issue of Frontiers in Ecology on Wednesday, focusing on sustainability in light of unprecedented human mobility, aka globalization.
Well, this has sort of thing has really been known for decades. Indeed in the early 20th century, Clements was competing with Gleason, who argued for a more random view of things. The Gleasonian view has been in vogue for years now.
I agree with Steve. Also, most ecologists recognize stochastic processes like recruitment in thinking about succession. I'm biased towards the marine world, but I think you might find salt marsh and rocky intertidal succession useful examples for class. There's a lot of discussion on how different forces, such as competition, facilitation, and physical stress, interact to influence successional patterns. This book is a good reference.