Monographs in Population Biology

Stephen P. Hubbell is Professor of Plant Biology at the University of Georgia and Staff Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. He is the author of more than one hundred papers in tropical plant ecology, theoretical ecology, and plant-animal interactions. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Pew Scholar Award in Conservation and the Environment. He is Chairman of the National Council for Science and the Environment (formerly the Committee for the National Institute for the Environment) and the inventor of Extinction: The Game of Ecology. Despite its supreme importance and the threat of its global crash, biodiversity remains poorly understood both empirically and theoretically. This ambitious book presents a new, general neutral theory to explain the origin, maintenance, and loss of biodiversity in a biogeographic context. Until now biogeography (the study of the geographic distribution of species) and biodiversity (the study of species richness and relative species abundance) have had largely disjunct intellectual histories. In this book, Stephen Hubbell develops a formal mathematical theory that unifies these two fields. When a speciation process is incorporated into Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson's now classical theory of island biogeography, the generalized theory predicts the existence of a universal, dimensionless biodiversity number. In the theory, this fundamental biodiversity number, together with the migration or dispersal rate, completely determines the steady-state distribution of species richness and relative species abundance on local to large geographic spatial scales and short-term to evolutionary time scales. Although neutral, Hubbell's theory is nevertheless able to generate many nonobvious, testable, and remarkably accurate quantitative predictions about biodiversity and biogeography. In many ways Hubbell's theory is the ecological analog to the neutral theory of genetic drift in genetics. The unified neutral theory of biogeography and biodiversity should stimulate research in new theoretical and empirical directions by ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and biogeographers. "Highly innovative and insightful. . . . Ideas are conveyed clearly and the addition of summary points at the end of each chapter facilitates assimilation.""---Richard T. Busing, Ecological Engineering "Hubbell's book is a very exciting one, deeply original, based on extensive field data, and convincing in its 'simple' explanations of many broad-scale patterns in biodiversity and biogeography. It will probably cause controversies, but primarily stimulate further research."---Gottfried Jetschke, Ecology "[This] is a rich book about an idea that has the power to re-produce generic patterns and that will be in the back of your mind when you, again, try to make sense of the plethora of articles on species diversity, abundance and distribution."---Carsten F. Dormann, Basic and Applied Ecology "A rich book about an idea that has the power to re-produce generic patterns and that will be in the back of your mind when you, again, try to make sense of the plethora of articles on species diversity, abundance and distribution. . . . Once you start reading it, you will find it not a page too long."---Carsten F. Dormann, Basic Applied Ecology "This is an important contribution to the development of a much sought-after explanation of pattern and process in an increasingly threatened global resource."---Michael E. Meadows, Environmental Conservation "Hubbell has produced a book for all those who think about how communities are put together, even the not so mathematically minded. . . . [It] is sure to influence how community ecology is done for years to come."---Sandra Knapp, Biological Conservation "This provocative and enlightening work, deeply original and supported by some of the most extensive field research ever conducted in biology, will be regarded as one of the most important

Michel Loreau is professor and Canada Research Chair in theoretical ecology at McGill University. The major subdisciplines of ecology--population ecology, community ecology, ecosystem ecology, and evolutionary ecology--have diverged increasingly in recent decades. What is critically needed today is an integrated, real-world approach to ecology that reflects the interdependency of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. From Populations to Ecosystems proposes an innovative theoretical synthesis that will enable us to advance our fundamental understanding of ecological systems and help us to respond to today's emerging global ecological crisis. Michel Loreau begins by explaining how the principles of population dynamics and ecosystem functioning can be merged. He then addresses key issues in the study of biodiversity and ecosystems, such as functional complementarity, food webs, stability and complexity, material cycling, and metacommunities. Loreau describes the most recent theoretical advances that link the properties of individual populations to the aggregate properties of communities, and the properties of functional groups or trophic levels to the functioning of whole ecosystems, placing special emphasis on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Finally, he turns his attention to the controversial issue of the evolution of entire ecosystems and their properties, laying the theoretical foundations for a genuine evolutionary ecosystem ecology. From Populations to Ecosystems points the way to a much-needed synthesis in ecology, one that offers a fuller understanding of ecosystem processes in the natural world. "This reviewer was particularly intrigued by the author's resurrection of the hypothesis that ecosystem complexity and biodiversity supports ecosystem stability, an early romantic notion that turned out to be extremely difficult to demonstrate. He makes a convincing case that this hypothesis may have merit after all." "This is a superbly written book about a very important challenge, namely that the theories of population, community and ecosystem ecology, and of evolution, have developed separately and are not entirely compatible. We need a synthesis of theories of population dynamics and ecosystem function and, faced with a global environmental crisis, we need it badly. This book is an excellent start. . . . I strongly recommend this book to researchers in any branch of ecology."---Alan J. Butler, Austral Ecology "I found the text both informative and interesting, and certainly relied upon my background in population ecology and genetics in reviewing this text. In the classroom environment, I could see this text being used in a graduate seminar or perhaps a senior-level honors class in biology, ecology, environmental science, or any of the related disciplines (as a paleontologist, I would certainly recommend it!)."---Ryan F. Morgan, Priscum "Michel Loreau has bravely, and successfully, built a new unified framework that harmonizes the disparate, and often conflicting, fields of population biology, community ecology, and ecosystem ecology. This book provides an exciting stimulus for new efforts to test and verify the rich array of insights that he provides."-Harold Mooney, Stanford University "Understanding global diversity has primarily been the business of evolutionary biologists, ecologists, and, only recently, the new breed of ecosystem/community ecologists, with little synthesis. In From Populations to Ecosystems, we can begin to see how these might all come together. This book is a valuable contribution, and will garner a wide readership."-Shahid Naeem, Columbia University "Loreau has crafted a significant volume that makes an important and timely addition to the literature on ecology. He writes clearly, even when he is grappling with thorny theoretical problems. No other author out there could have carried off the synthesis he provides. I predict that From Populations

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2011" Oswald J. Schmitz is the Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology in the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. An ecosystem's complexity develops from the vast numbers of species interacting in ecological communities. The nature of these interactions, in turn, depends on environmental context. How do these components together influence an ecosystem's behavior as a whole? Can ecologists resolve an ecosystem's complexity in order to predict its response to disturbances? Resolving Ecosystem Complexity develops a framework for anticipating the ways environmental context determines the functioning of ecosystems. Oswald Schmitz addresses the critical questions of contemporary ecology: How should an ecosystem be conceptualized to blend its biotic and biophysical components? How should evolutionary ecological principles be used to derive an operational understanding of complex, adaptive ecosystems? How should the relationship between the functional biotic diversity of ecosystems and their properties be understood? Schmitz begins with the universal concept that ecosystems are comprised of species that consume resources and which are then resources for other consumers. From this, he deduces a fundamental rule or evolutionary ecological mechanism for explaining context dependency: individuals within a species trade off foraging gains against the risk of being consumed by predators. Through empirical examples, Schmitz illustrates how species use evolutionary ecological strategies to negotiate a predator-eat-predator world, and he suggests that the implications of species trade-offs are critical to making ecology a predictive science. Bridging the traditional divides between individuals, populations, and communities in ecology, Resolving Ecosystem Complexity builds a systematic foundation for thinking about natural systems. "Within the fast-growing landscape of ecological literature, this book emerges as a rare yet inspiring attempt to explain ecosystem complexity. Schmitz does this by introducing contingencies in nature and synthesizing up-to-date knowledge on species interactions, trophic structure, and ecosystem function and dynamics through stimulating questions, theoretical thinking, and empirical evidence. . . . This is a model book in ecology, and should be used as a critical reference source for academics interested in ecological theory and recent developments in the field." "This book would be a great starting point for undergraduates considering careers in ecology and is a goldmine for graduate students looking for dissertation topics. But most importantly, this book reminds all of us that we can indeed understand the complexity of ecological systems."---Aaron M. Ellison, Ecology "Although they are strongly focused on the experimental side of ecology the range of topics covered in this book is large and coupled with at least initial experimental evidence, sometimes with fascinating hypothesis-generating extrapolations."---John H. Vandermeer, BioScience "Resolving Ecosystem Complexity presents a modern synthesis of trophic structure and function that addresses some of the most fundamental questions raised by Darwin, Tansley, and Hutchinson. Through rigorous analysis of case studies and data, Schmitz brings to life the importance of direct and indirect interactions on the functioning of ecosystems. This clear and compelling book is a must-read for scientists and educators interested in integrative ecosystem analysis."-Adrien Finzi, Boston University "This ambitious and inspiring book is a valuable contribution to ecology. Highly synthetic, it melds an overall approach to science with summaries of detailed empirical and theoretical work. Resolving Ecosystem Complexity is remarkably well done and I learned a great deal from reading this important book."-Anurag Agrawal, Cornell University "This book focuses on the importance of multit

Michael Doebeli is a professor in the departments of zoology and mathematics at the University of British Columbia. Understanding the mechanisms driving biological diversity remains a central problem in ecology and evolutionary biology. Traditional explanations assume that differences in selection pressures lead to different adaptations in geographically separated locations. This book takes a different approach and explores adaptive diversification--diversification rooted in ecological interactions and frequency-dependent selection. In any ecosystem, birth and death rates of individuals are affected by interactions with other individuals. What is an advantageous phenotype therefore depends on the phenotype of other individuals, and it may often be best to be ecologically different from the majority phenotype. Such rare-type advantage is a hallmark of frequency-dependent selection and opens the scope for processes of diversification that require ecological contact rather than geographical isolation. Michael Doebeli investigates adaptive diversification using the mathematical framework of adaptive dynamics. Evolutionary branching is a paradigmatic feature of adaptive dynamics that serves as a basic metaphor for adaptive diversification, and Doebeli explores the scope of evolutionary branching in many different ecological scenarios, including models of coevolution, cooperation, and cultural evolution. He also uses alternative modeling approaches. Stochastic, individual-based models are particularly useful for studying adaptive speciation in sexual populations, and partial differential equation models confirm the pervasiveness of adaptive diversification. Showing that frequency-dependent interactions are an important driver of biological diversity, Adaptive Diversification provides a comprehensive theoretical treatment of adaptive diversification. "[T]his is a timely, useful study that should inspire and equip young theoreticians to indentify and explore the important unanswered questions in adaptive diversification."---Graeme Ruxton, Quarterly Review of Biology "Presenting the theoretical background to evolutionary theory in the context of adaptation and speciation, this book fills an important niche and provides a versatile approach to a range of evolutionary phenomena. It will inspire a new generation of evolutionary theory students and have a significant impact on future research directions."-Diethard Tautz, Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology "This logically structured, clearly written, and easy-to-follow book provides a systematic framework for understanding how and why frequency-dependent selection impacts the evolution of diversity. I am certain this book will motivate researchers to take up adaptive dynamics theory."-Michael Travisano, University of Minnesota

A. Townsend Peterson and Jorge Soberón are professors of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas. Richard G. Pearson is a scientist at the American Museum of Natural History. Robert P. Anderson is associate professor of biology at the City College of New York, CUNY. Enrique Martínez-Meyer is professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Miguel Nakamura is a researcher at the Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas in Guanajuato, Mexico. Miguel B. Araújo is a senior researcher at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, and at the Universidade de Évora, Portugal. This book provides a first synthetic view of an emerging area of ecology and biogeography, linking individual- and population-level processes to geographic distributions and biodiversity patterns. Problems in evolutionary ecology, macroecology, and biogeography are illuminated by this integrative view. The book focuses on correlative approaches known as ecological niche modeling, species distribution modeling, or habitat suitability modeling, which use associations between known occurrences of species and environmental variables to identify environmental conditions under which populations can be maintained. The spatial distribution of environments suitable for the species can then be estimated: a potential distribution for the species. This approach has broad applicability to ecology, evolution, biogeography, and conservation biology, as well as to understanding the geographic potential of invasive species and infectious diseases, and the biological implications of climate change. The authors lay out conceptual foundations and general principles for understanding and interpreting species distributions with respect to geography and environment. Focus is on development of niche models. While serving as a guide for students and researchers, the book also provides a theoretical framework to support future progress in the field. "[Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions] would serve as an excellent and authoritative textbook or resource for an upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level class on ecological modeling." "This book is an impressively well written exposition of the conceptual foundation, practical implementation, and potential applications of niche modeling. . . . Overall, this book is an instant classic and a critical read for anyone interested in this fast-moving field of ecological niche modeling. I have already assigned it as required reading to graduate students in my lab."---Alycia Stigall, Priscum "I found this book very useful. Its theoretical rigor will please those already involved with niche modeling, and its numerous and interesting examples make it accessible to a broad readership."---Ian S. Pearce, Quarterly Review of Biology "Ecological Niches And Geographic Distributions concisely summarizes the conceptual framework and current major issues in a diverse and rapidly expanding literature. The numerous illustrations help to clarify key concepts and case studies, and the writing is clear throughout. Although the book sometimes forgoes depth in favor of clarity, ultimately I feel that this approach is for the best; many of the chapters in Parts 2 and 3 could be expanded to fill entire books of their own, but doing so would necessarily sacrifice much of the 'big picture' that is the focus of this volume. Ecological niches and geographic distributions would be a worthy addition to the library of any investigator using ENM/SDM methods in their research, and would be an excellent resource for students and investigators who are encountering the field for the first time."---Dan L. Warren, Ecology "With a real exploration of key concepts, this book will be an essential guide for students and researchers, providing a theoretical framework with which to support future progress in the field. This book is highly recommended."---Evelyne Bremond-Hoslet, National d'Histoire Naturelle "The seven aut

Kevin S. McCann is associate professor of integrative biology at the University of Guelph. Human impacts are dramatically altering our natural ecosystems but the exact repercussions on ecological sustainability and function remain unclear. As a result, food web theory has experienced a proliferation of research seeking to address these critical areas. Arguing that the various recent and classical food web theories can be looked at collectively and in a highly consistent and testable way, Food Webs synthesizes and reconciles modern and classical perspectives into a general unified theory. Kevin McCann brings together outcomes from population-, community-, and ecosystem-level approaches under the common currency of energy or material fluxes. He shows that these approaches--often studied in isolation--all have the same general implications in terms of population dynamic stability. Specifically, increased fluxes of energy or material tend to destabilize populations, communities, and whole ecosystems. With this understanding, stabilizing structures at different levels of the ecological hierarchy can be identified and any population-, community-, or ecosystem-level structures that mute energy or material flow also stabilize systems dynamics. McCann uses this powerful general framework to discuss the effects of human impact on the stability and sustainability of ecological systems, and he demonstrates that there is clear empirical evidence that the structures supporting ecological systems have been dangerously eroded. Uniting the latest research on food webs with classical theories, this book will be a standard source in the understanding of natural food web functions. "This is a must-read for ecologists interested in ecosystem dynamics." "This is potentially an indispensable book for ecologists and paleoecologists alike, synthesizing food-web theory and outcomes from population-level up to whole-ecosystem-level approaches. McCann offers clear explanations of the dynamics of food webs using a mathematical approach, and while the book will be of particular use to graduate students, it may also be of substantial use to undergraduate students as an advanced but very thorough introduction to the subject."---Jo Hellawell, Priscum "Food Webs is an imaginative but very concise book in terms of methodology and selection of concepts. It is extremely coherent, though some may think extremely selective in the models and concepts used. But to build a food web theory across different scales of organization, from single populations to real multispecies interaction networks, this selectivity is needed, and the unifying concept of stability makes it fascinating."---Jose M. Montoya, Ecology "[T]his is a very exciting book that communicates theoretical concepts to a broad ecological audience. In addition, the overview over the countless seminal studies by McCann and co-workers make this book unique and a highly recommended read for all ecologists."---Ulrich Brose, Basic & Applied Ecology "McCann builds an elegant and concise framework to understand the emergent dynamics of food web systems. Precise and straightforward mathematics, clear definitions and models, and excellent descriptions make this an essential book for any community ecologist."-Marcel Holyoak, University of California, Davis "Understanding the structure of food webs is one of the major challenges for science in the twenty-first century. McCann provides a well-organized introduction into what has been done over the last thirty years and he offers deep insights and novel approaches that will pave the way for all future studies. This may well be one of the most important and influential books in ecology for several decades."-Andrew Dobson, Princeton University "Synthesizing a range of theoretical and empirical literature, this stimulating and timely book brings out specific structural features of food webs that can broadly stabilize ecological dynamics. The perspectiv

"Winner of the 2016 BES Marsh Christian Trust Book Award, British Ecological Association" Jordi Bascompte is professor of ecology at the University of Zurich. He is the coauthor of Self-Organization in Complex Ecosystems (Princeton). Pedro Jordano is a professor at the Spanish Research Council and honorary professor at the University of Sevilla. Mutualistic interactions among plants and animals have played a paramount role in shaping biodiversity. Yet the majority of studies on mutualistic interactions have involved only a few species, as opposed to broader mutual connections between communities of organisms. Mutualistic Networks is the first book to comprehensively explore this burgeoning field. Integrating different approaches, from the statistical description of network structures to the development of new analytical frameworks, Jordi Bascompte and Pedro Jordano describe the architecture of these mutualistic networks and show their importance for the robustness of biodiversity and the coevolutionary process. Making a case for why we should care about mutualisms and their complex networks, this book offers a new perspective on the study and synthesis of this growing area for ecologists and evolutionary biologists. It will serve as the standard reference for all future work on mutualistic interactions in biological communities. "[A]ll ecologists will benefit from reading [Mutualistic Networks], giving this audience a better understanding of the network perspective on mutualism." "Making a case for why we should care about mutualisms and their complex networks, this book offers a new perspective on the study and synthesis of this growing area for ecologists and evolutionary biologists. It will serve as the standard reference for any future work on mutualistic interactions in biological communities." "Mutualistic Networks is a book that presents a highly dynamic field in its entire breadth and historic development. [A]nyone interested in a passionate layout of a multifaceted and ecologically exciting research area will want to read it."---Carsten F. Dormann, Basic and Applied Ecology "[T]his excellent and unique book provides novel insights into ecological and coevolutionary dynamics of interacting species."---Wesley Dáttilo, Journal of Complex Networks "Bascompte and Jordano . . . logically and thoroughly guide the reader through the theories and tools used to understand, and the importance of understanding, the complexity of mutualistic networks."---Luke S. O'Loughlin, Austral Ecology "The book thus serves as a comprehensive introduction to anyone interested in using network techniques to analyze multispecies networks and provides a gentle lead into the techniques available, which are often quite complex and can easily be misapplied. Everything is set out lucidly, and the logic behind different network parameters and their analysis is made clear, so I found it straightforward to use network analysis on some of my own data with pleasing results. . . . Highly relevant for general conservation biology."---David Nash, Conservation Biology "Until recently, the study of mutualism was replete with lovely natural history details, but largely divorced from ecological theory. In this fine book, Bascompte and Jordano take an important step toward rectifying this situation, by applying a rich array of network tools and phylogenetically informed analyses to webs of mutualistic interactions. The authors deftly synthesize a wide range of empirical case studies and theoretical perspectives, draw a number of intriguing and unexpected conclusions, and provide useful, detailed methodological appendices which will facilitate future studies of mutualism in a community context."-Robert D. Holt, University of Florida "This engaging book is required reading for anyone interested in how the web of life is organized. With impeccable scholarship, a broad and careful presentation, and nuanced interpretation, it probes deep questions about th

Christopher Dye is the Director of Strategy in the Office of the Director General at the World Health Organization, Geneva. He has been the Gresham Professor of Physic in London and a visiting professor of zoology at the University of Oxford. His work has appeared in many publications including Science, Nature and The Lancet. Despite decades of developments in immunization and drug therapy, tuberculosis remains among the leading causes of human mortality, and no country has successfully eradicated the disease. Reenvisioning tuberculosis from the perspective of population biology, this book examines why the disease is so persistent and what must be done to fight it. Treating tuberculosis and its human hosts as dynamic, interacting populations, Christopher Dye seeks new answers to key questions by drawing on demography, ecology, epidemiology, evolution, and population genetics. Dye uses simple mathematical models to investigate how cases and deaths could be reduced, and how interventions could lead to TB elimination. Dye's analysis reveals a striking gap between the actual and potential impact of current interventions, especially drug treatment, and he suggests placing more emphasis on early case detection and the treatment of active or incipient tuberculosis. He argues that the response to disappointingly slow rates of disease decline is not to abandon long-established principles of chemotherapy, but to implement them with greater vigor. Summarizing epidemiological insights from population biology, Dye stresses the need to take a more inclusive view of the factors that affect disease, including characteristics of the pathogen, individuals and populations, health care systems, and physical and social environments. In broadening the horizons of TB research, The Population Biology of Tuberculosis demonstrates what must be done to prevent, control, and defeat this global threat in the twenty-first century. "This is an important book by one of the world's leading experts on tuberculosis. Christopher Dye breaks new ground and uses a novel approach to study how tuberculosis cases and fatalities could be decreased. He demonstrates how certain interventions, energetically pursued, offer the hope that tuberculosis can ultimately be eradicated."-Robert May, University of Oxford "With formal and persuasive analysis, Dye shows how HIV/AIDS has caused massive increases in the burden of tuberculosis in Africa since the 1980s. But Dye's ultimate message is a hopeful one: current methods of prevention and treatment could, if rigorously implemented, substantially cut mortality rates for both diseases, even within a few years."-Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine "A major cause of death throughout history, tuberculosis still kills more than a million people every year. This book argues that successful tuberculosis control will depend on a comprehensive strategy combining the most effective technological, policy, and social interventions available. Rooted in quantitative analysis, the book explores factors driving the epidemic in different populations, and offers a novel and comprehensive approach that will help set future priorities."-Mario Raviglione, director of the Global TB Programme, World Health Organization "Dye's book is essential reading for anyone concerned about how tuberculosis can be eliminated as a major public health problem. A master of modeling, Dye considers the entire range of complexities that influence the dynamics of the disease in multiple countries. He helps us to understand the numerous interventions and 'what ifs' that would make the critical and profound difference in controlling this ancient scourge of mankind."-Barry R. Bloom, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health "This book is a brilliant rethink of tuberculosis within the context of a rapidly evolving global environment. Dye examines the multifaceted factors of the disease and lays the foundation for a novel

"Winner of the 2016 Postgraduate Textbook Prize, Royal Society of Biology" Joshua S. Weitz is associate professor of biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. When we think about viruses we tend to consider ones that afflict humans-such as those that cause influenza, HIV, and Ebola. Yet, vastly more viruses infect single-celled microbes. Diverse and abundant, microbes and the viruses that infect them are found in oceans, lakes, plants, soil, and animal-associated microbiomes. Taking a vital look at the "microscopic" mode of disease dynamics, Quantitative Viral Ecology establishes a theoretical foundation from which to model and predict the ecological and evolutionary dynamics that result from the interaction between viruses and their microbial hosts. Joshua Weitz addresses three major questions: What are viruses of microbes and what do they do to their hosts? How do interactions of a single virus-host pair affect the number and traits of hosts and virus populations? How do virus-host dynamics emerge in natural environments when interactions take place between many viruses and many hosts? Emphasizing how theory and models can provide answers, Weitz offers a cohesive framework for tackling new challenges in the study of viruses and microbes and how they are connected to ecological processes-from the laboratory to the Earth system. Quantitative Viral Ecology is an innovative exploration of the influence of viruses in our complex natural world. "Outstanding. . . . An impressive scholarly endeavor and overview of the field. . . . Despite its complex subject matter, the book is pleasingly readable and its content fully digestible by a non-expert."---Dr. Ian Turner, The Biologist "Quantitative Viral Ecology is exactly the book we need for the field. Until now everyone had to go to the primary literature to find good quantitative arguments in virology, but in this book, Weitz provides us with necessary principles and clear explanations. This volume will be useful for students new to the subject as well as anyone needing to refresh their knowledge of the discipline."-Forest Rohwer, San Diego State University "Joshua Weitz delivers a beautifully written book that captures the important and rapidly growing field of modern viral ecology. As one of the emerging leaders of the field's transformation into a quantitative discipline, Weitz provides many clear, accessible examples of how mathematical modeling can lead to dramatic new insights into virus-host interactions and the rich variety of phenomena that accompany them. This is a book that can be profitably read by researchers at all levels, whether from a biological or quantitative background."-Nigel Goldenfeld, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign "Drawing upon theoretical methods used in ecology and virology, as well as developing new approaches, Weitz has produced a pathbreaking book that provides a synthesis of existing knowledge and a way forward to original discoveries."-Alan Hastings, University of California, Davis "Mathematical models are necessary tools for understanding the population dynamics of viruses. A large value of this book is its potential as a bridge between pure modeling and experimental/observational work in the field. Weitz's knowledge of the historical background is excellent and he uses entertaining, informative content and highly relevant cases throughout."-Tron Frede Thingstad, University of Bergen "In recent years, there has been a swelling wave of awareness by microbiologists and ecologists regarding the significance of viruses in natural environments. In this book, Weitz synthesizes a wide range of empirical knowledge with rigorous population dynamical models to encapsulate the interactions among viruses and their microbial hosts. Weitz is at the top of his field and his breadth of knowledge is impressive."-Robert D. Holt, University of Florida

Mark D. Hunter is the Henry A. Gleason Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. His books include Ecology of Insects: Concepts and Applications. The dazzling variation in plant chemistry is a primary mediator of trophic interactions, including herbivory, predation, parasitism, and disease. At the same time, such interactions feed back to influence spatial and temporal variation in the chemistry of plants. In this book, Mark Hunter provides a novel approach to linking the trophic interactions of organisms with the cycling of nutrients in ecosystems. Hunter introduces the concept of the "phytochemical landscape"-the shifting spatial and temporal mosaic of plant chemistry that serves as the nexus between trophic interactions and nutrient dynamics. He shows how plant chemistry is both a cause and consequence of trophic interactions, and how it also mediates ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling. Nutrients and organic molecules in plant tissues affect decomposition rates and the fluxes of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. The availability of these same nutrients influences the chemistry of cells and tissues that plants produce. In combination, these feedback routes generate pathways by which trophic interactions influence nutrient dynamics and vice versa, mediated through plant chemistry. Hunter provides evidence from terrestrial and aquatic systems for each of these pathways, and describes how a focus on the phytochemical landscape enables us to better understand and manage the ecosystems in which we live. Essential reading for students and researchers alike, this book offers an integrated approach to population-, community-, and ecosystem-level ecological processes. "[Phytochemical Landscape] is written well, carefully documented, and adequately illustrated." "Plant life on Earth is characterized by an enormous variation in its chemistry. In this unique synthesis, Mark Hunter makes a compelling case that explicit recognition of this variation is central to understanding ecological processes, whether at the population, community, or ecosystem levels. It is a must-read for all ecologists interested in interactions and feedbacks, and is destined to become a classic in the general ecological literature."-David Wardle, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences "An organism is basically a bag of interacting chemicals-with an attitude. Gathering, hoarding, and transforming materials from the environment is key for organismal functioning and fitness, and such activities influence ecosystem chemical fluxes and pools. In this masterful book, Hunter synthesizes a heretofore scattered field of research, focusing on how phytochemistry varies across space, and how such variation reflects feedback loops among the physical environment, plants, herbivores, and higher trophic levels. This is essential reading for all ecologists."-Robert D. Holt, University of Florida "Hunter has produced a remarkably broad, comprehensive, and intellectually exciting treatment of autotroph chemical traits, their complex interactions with other producer traits and consumers, and how these dynamic interactions affect populations, communities, and ecosystems. This is a conceptually rich resource for students and senior investigators alike."-Mark Hay, Georgia Institute of Technology "This timely and authoritative book offers a potentially transformative way of integrating several disparate ecological subfields to foster the pursuit of big-picture ecological science. It could only have been written by someone with Mark Hunter's vision and breadth and depth of knowledge."-Oswald J. Schmitz, author of Resolving Ecosystem Complexity "This is an excellent work of scholarship that makes important contributions to our understanding of phytochemistry, herbivory, and their links to ecosystem processes. Hunter's arguments are sound, his organization logical, and his conclusions insightful

Mathew A. Leibold is professor of biology at the University of Florida. Jonathan M. Chase is professor of biodiversity synthesis at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. They are the authors of Ecological Niches: Linking Classical and Contemporary Approaches. Metacommunity ecology links smaller-scale processes that have been the provenance of population and community ecology-such as birth-death processes, species interactions, selection, and stochasticity-with larger-scale issues such as dispersal and habitat heterogeneity. Until now, the field has focused on evaluating the relative importance of distinct processes, with niche-based environmental sorting on one side and neutral-based ecological drift and dispersal limitation on the other. This book moves beyond these artificial categorizations, showing how environmental sorting, dispersal, ecological drift, and other processes influence metacommunity structure simultaneously. Mathew Leibold and Jonathan Chase argue that the relative importance of these processes depends on the characteristics of the organisms, the strengths and types of their interactions, the degree of habitat heterogeneity, the rates of dispersal, and the scale at which the system is observed. Using this synthetic perspective, they explore metacommunity patterns in time and space, including patterns of coexistence, distribution, and diversity. Leibold and Chase demonstrate how these processes and patterns are altered by micro- and macroevolution, traits and phylogenetic relationships, and food web interactions. They then use this scale-explicit perspective to illustrate how metacommunity processes are essential for understanding macroecological and biogeographical patterns as well as ecosystem-level processes. Moving seamlessly across scales and subdisciplines, Metacommunity Ecology is an invaluable reference, one that offers a more integrated approach to ecological patterns and processes. "Leibold and Chase have written an authoritative and accessible account of recent research on how spatially organized processes shape patterns of biological diversity over the ecological landscape. This book will be the springboard for future work in this area."-Robert E. Ricklefs, University of Missouri, St. Louis "Current thinking in ecology is a disorganized soup of ideas, from dispersal and spatial heterogeneity to temporal change, species sorting, and evolution. This book impressively pulls these disparate threads into a powerful and coherent framework based on metacommunities. Its next-generation metacommunity framework could well serve as a launching pad for the next decade of ecology."-Brian McGill, University of Maine "In this magisterial book, Leibold and Chase provide a conceptually coherent synthesis of the burgeoning field of metacommunity ecology. In addition to deftly synthesizing a sprawling literature on the role of dispersal limitation, drift, and interactions in metacommunities, they highlight the importance of linking metacommunity processes to evolutionary dynamics and ecosystem function. All ecologists will profit from careful reading of this fine and timely contribution."-Robert Holt, University of Florida "A highly significant contribution. Leibold and Chase provide an encompassing and critical overview of the current state of metacommunity ecology and discuss novel approaches, novel perspectives, and applications that contribute to a much broader framework. I learned a lot from this book."-Luc De Meester, University of Leuven "Interesting and informative. Leibold and Chase have assembled in one volume recent key studies that show how metacommunity ecology is indeed wide-ranging in its scope."-Tadashi Fukami, Stanford University

Boris Worm is Killam Professor of Biology at Dalhousie University. Derek P. Tittensor is adjunct professor of biology at Dalhousie University and senior marine biodiversity scientist at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre. The number of species found at a given point on the planet varies by orders of magnitude, yet large-scale gradients in biodiversity appear to follow some very general patterns. Little mechanistic theory has been formulated to explain the emergence of observed gradients of biodiversity both on land and in the oceans. Based on a comprehensive empirical synthesis of global patterns of species diversity and their drivers, A Theory of Global Biodiversity develops and applies a new theory that can predict such patterns from few underlying processes. The authors show that global patterns of biodiversity fall into four consistent categories, according to where species live: on land or in coastal, pelagic, and deep ocean habitats. The fact that most species groups, from bacteria to whales, appear to follow similar biogeographic patterns of richness within these habitats points toward some underlying structuring principles. Based on empirical analyses of environmental correlates across these habitats, the authors combine aspects of neutral, metabolic, and niche theory into one unifying framework. Applying it to model terrestrial and marine realms, the authors demonstrate that a relatively simple theory that incorporates temperature and community size as driving variables is able to explain divergent patterns of species richness at a global scale. Integrating ecological and evolutionary perspectives, A Theory of Global Biodiversity yields surprising insights into the fundamental mechanisms that shape the distribution of life on our planet. "I have been awaiting such a book for a long time. Worm and Tittensor combine three leading theoretical perspectives in ecology-neutral theory, metabolic theory, and niche theory-into a single, elegantly simple model to explain global patterns of species richness on land and in the sea. Their theory is novel, often surprising, and important in its implications for the future of biodiversity on Earth."-Stephen P. Hubbell, University of California, Los Angeles, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute "An impressive step forward in our quest to understand the patterns of life on this planet. This book will guide future research and inform the actions that we must prioritize to conserve biodiversity."-Cristiana Paşca Palmer, United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity "This eminently readable book probes the very heart of ecology and evolutionary biology by describing and explaining global patterns of species diversity. A landmark work and must-read for every serious student of living nature."-James Estes, author of Serendipity: An Ecologist's Quest to Understand Nature "This book is an outstanding contribution to the long-standing effort to account for the diversity of life on Earth. It summarizes the state of the science, presents a wealth of data on biodiversity in the oceans and on land, and develops a compelling new model to explain major patterns and processes. A Theory of Global Biodiversity sets an agenda for the next decade of research."-James H. Brown, coauthor of Biogeography "A Theory of Global Biodiversity examines the age-old issue of what controls diversity at large scales. While the question is often framed as why are there more species in the tropics, this book rightly tackles the more precise and tractable question of why are there more species in some parts of the globe than others."-Brian J. McGill, University of Maine "The pattern of high diversity at the equator and declining diversity at the poles is one that holds true for many taxa, and a universal explanation for this pattern has long been sought by ecologists, naturalists,

Eric Post is professor of climate change ecology and fellow of the John Muir Institute at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Ecology of Climate Change: The Importance of Biotic Interactions (Princeton) and the coeditor of Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate. Ecologists traditionally regard time as part of the background against which ecological interactions play out. In this book, Eric Post argues that time should be treated as a resource used by organisms for growth, maintenance, and offspring production. Post uses insights from phenology-the study of the timing of life-cycle events-to present a theoretical framework of time in ecology that casts long-standing observations in the field in an entirely new light. Combining conceptual models with field data, he demonstrates how phenological advances, delays, and stasis, documented in an array of taxa, can all be viewed as adaptive components of an organism's strategic use of time. Post shows how the allocation of time by individual organisms to critical life history stages is not only a response to environmental cues but also an important driver of interactions at the population, species, and community levels. To demonstrate the applications of this exciting new conceptual framework, Time in Ecology uses meta-analyses of previous studies as well as Post's original data on the phenological dynamics of plants, caribou, and muskoxen in Greenland. "Every once in a while, someone comes along and changes how we think by revealing something that has been hidden in plain sight. Using an engaging narrative, Eric Post has done just that. His new concept of an ecological space-time continuum will fundamentally enhance our ability to make sense of the contingency in species life-history strategies and associated ecological functioning that we see in nature."-Oswald J. Schmitz, author of The New Ecology: Rethinking a Science for the Anthropocene "Eric Post poses the view that time is a resource, and that reframing our thinking in this way is essential to understanding how evolution and ecology influence the varied responses of species to environmental changes. Join him on this journey of exploration and discover the important role that time plays in shaping the interactions of species with the world around them."-Heidi Steltzer, Fort Lewis College "A gem of a book! Post presents compelling theory and credible, concrete examples that demonstrate the ecological role of time as a limiting resource. This work will undoubtedly shape the future of phenological research for years to come."-Andrew Richardson, Northern Arizona University "Global climate trends are changing the well understood abiotic phenological triggers such as photoperiod, thermal limits, and seasonal rainfall. In this provocative book, Post adds an additional variable, time, in a novel way to interpret observed variations in life history responses of plants and animals. His exploration of the added influence of timing of life history stages is compelling and challenging."-Steven W. Running, University of Montana "Post argues that time is a resource used by organisms to perpetuate their genes. Changes in the use of the time-space continuum will determine the response of species and communities to rapid and dramatic changes in nature wrought by humans. This book offers a provocative new way to look at how and why species change their use of time and space."-William H. Schlesinger, president emeritus, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies "Post's book makes a significant contribution both as a compendium of some of his long-term data and a presentation of some novel perspectives on phenology."-David William Inouye, coauthor of Techniques for Pollination Biologists

Steven F. Railsback is adjunct professor of mathematics at Humboldt State University and a consulting ecologist. His books include Individual-based Modeling and Ecology and Agent-Based and Individual-Based Modeling (both Princeton). Bret C. Harvey is an aquatic ecologist with the US Forest Service and adjunct professor of fisheries biology at Humboldt State. Ecologists now recognize that the dynamics of populations, communities, and ecosystems are strongly affected by adaptive individual behaviors. Yet until now, we have lacked effective and flexible methods for modeling such dynamics. Traditional ecological models become impractical with the inclusion of behavior, and the optimization approaches of behavioral ecology cannot be used when future conditions are unpredictable due to feedbacks from the behavior of other individuals. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to state- and prediction-based theory, or SPT, a powerful new approach to modeling trade-off behaviors in contexts such as individual-based population models where feedbacks and variability make optimization impossible. Modeling Populations of Adaptive Individuals features a wealth of examples that range from highly simplified behavior models to complex population models in which individuals make adaptive trade-off decisions about habitat and activity selection in highly heterogeneous environments. Steven Railsback and Bret Harvey explain how SPT builds on key concepts from the state-based dynamic modeling theory of behavioral ecology, and how it combines explicit predictions of future conditions with approximations of a fitness measure to represent how individuals make good-not optimal-decisions that they revise as conditions change. The resulting models are realistic, testable, adaptable, and invaluable for answering fundamental questions in ecology and forecasting ecological outcomes of real-world scenarios. "Freeing trade-off decision theory from previous unrealistic assumptions of global optimality, Railsback and Harvey offer a user's guide for others to build models detailed enough to use for real management but sufficiently mechanistic to predict system responses under new circumstances. Their theory is a major advance in ecology for upscaling from individuals to populations, and beyond to community and ecosystem consequences. This book is critical for understanding and managing real organisms as they and we confront a heterogeneous and increasingly fluctuating world."-Mary E. Power, University of California, Berkeley "Railsback and Harvey provide a consistent approach to the ecological challenge of moving from individual behavior to population-level responses. Those who develop and evaluate individual-based models will find this insightful book to be a useful guide to characterizing the individual behavioral rules that account for the inherent trade-offs real organisms make."-Louis J. Gross, University of Tennessee, Knoxville "The effects of decision making by individual organisms on populations and communities has become a major topic in ecology, one that has developed extraordinarily rapidly in the past two decades. Railsback and Harvey provide a comprehensive theoretical foundation for incorporating these processes into ecological models, showing how such modeling can be very powerful across key areas of ecology."-Donald L. DeAngelis, coauthor of Mathematical Models of Plant-Herbivore Interactions

Henry S. Horn (1941–2019) was professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University. He was the author of The Adaptive Geometry of Trees and the coeditor of Molds, Molecules, and Metazoa: Growing Points in Evolutionary Biology (both Princeton). An ecologist's investigation of the social lives of butterflies Throughout his career, Henry Horn took a unique approach to the study of butterflies. This book brings together his findings with recent advances in behavioral ecology to provide an incomparable look at the social lives of butterflies, illuminating for the first time the marvelously diverse range of butterfly behaviors across several species. Social Butterflies features in-depth studies of five sympatric species-the Plain Ringlet, the Eyed Brown, the Great Spangled Fritillary, the Viceroy, and the Pearly Eye-showing how their social interactions span much of the range of behaviors observed in vertebrates. Drawing on decades of his own keen observations in the field, Horn describes the natural history and behavioral peculiarities of each species and develops models to explain characteristic aspects of their behaviors. He then emphasizes key departures from these models to challenge the notion that butterflies are simply preconditioned to react to stimuli, showing how some make decisions by observing how other butterflies interact with the landscape and each other. Along the way, he sheds light on butterfly territoriality, mating tactics, vagrancy, feeding strategies, and more. Charting new directions for future research, Social Butterflies poses intriguing questions about the complex and sometimes mystifying social behaviors of these marvelous creatures, making it essential reading for lepidopterists, ecologists, and anyone interested in the social behaviors of invertebrate species. "Butterflies have proven their status as model organisms for biology, on par with mice and fruit flies. Horn shows how they provide general insights into the behavior of all animals. His very personal account of his scientific process and observation will spark new studies of butterflies and other animals."-Nick Haddad, author of The Last Butterflies: A Scientist's Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature "Social Butterflies demonstrates that great things can emerge by putting a clever person in a woodlot and giving him or her permission to do what comes naturally. The book's greatest value lies in its documentation of the process of discovery."-Arthur M. Shapiro, University of California, Davis

Aaron M. Ellison is the Senior Research Fellow Emeritus in Ecology at Harvard University. Website unbalancedecologist.net Twitter @AMaxEll17 Nicholas J. Gotelli is the George H. Perkins Professor of Zoology at the University of Vermont. Website uvm.edu/~ngotelli/homepage.html They are the coauthors of A Primer of Ecological Statistics and A Field Guide to the Ants of New England. A groundbreaking approach to scale and scaling in ecological theory and practice Scale is one of the most important concepts in ecology, yet researchers often find it difficult to find ecological systems that lend themselves to its study. Scaling in Ecology with a Model System synthesizes nearly three decades of research on the ecology of Sarracenia purpurea-the northern pitcher plant-showing how this carnivorous plant and its associated food web of microbes and macrobes can inform the challenging question of scaling in ecology. Drawing on a wealth of findings from their pioneering lab and field experiments, Aaron Ellison and Nicholas Gotelli reveal how the Sarracenia microecosystem has emerged as a model system for experimental ecology. Ellison and Gotelli examine Sarracenia at a hierarchy of spatial scales-individual pitchers within plants, plants within bogs, and bogs within landscapes-and demonstrate how pitcher plants can serve as replicate miniature ecosystems that can be studied in wetlands throughout the United States and Canada. They show how research on the Sarracenia microecosystem proceeds much more rapidly than studies of larger, more slowly changing ecosystems such as forests, grasslands, lakes, or streams, which are more difficult to replicate and experimentally manipulate. Scaling in Ecology with a Model System offers new insights into ecophysiology and stoichiometry, demography, extinction risk and species distribution models, food webs and trophic dynamics, and tipping points and regime shifts. "This engaging book is a wonderful example of how to do the kind of integrative science that the founders of ecology originally intended. Ellison and Gotelli offer the next generation of ecologists a new way to think about nature."-Oswald J. Schmitz, author of The New Ecology: Rethinking a Science for the Anthropocene "This unique book provides a rare and complete synthesis of research and observations on a single study system, and is a superb example of ecological thinking that blends theory and empiricism. Scaling in Ecology with a Model System is a rich introduction to ecological science for any reader."-Mary O'Connor, University of British Columbia

Mark Vellend is professor of biology at the Université de Sherbrooke. He is a 2015 recipient of an E. W. R. Steacie Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. A plethora of different theories, models, and concepts make up the field of community ecology. Amid this vast body of work, is it possible to build one general theory of ecological communities? What other scientific areas might serve as a guiding framework? As it turns out, the core focus of community ecology-understanding patterns of diversity and composition of biological variants across space and time-is shared by evolutionary biology and its very coherent conceptual framework, population genetics theory. The Theory of Ecological Communities takes this as a starting point to pull together community ecology's various perspectives into a more unified whole. Mark Vellend builds a theory of ecological communities based on four overarching processes: selection among species, drift, dispersal, and speciation. These are analogues of the four central processes in population genetics theory-selection within species, drift, gene flow, and mutation-and together they subsume almost all of the many dozens of more specific models built to describe the dynamics of communities of interacting species. The result is a theory that allows the effects of many low-level processes, such as competition, facilitation, predation, disturbance, stress, succession, colonization, and local extinction to be understood as the underpinnings of high-level processes with widely applicable consequences for ecological communities. Reframing the numerous existing ideas in community ecology, The Theory of Ecological Communities provides a new way for thinking about biological composition and diversity. "In 1986, Thomas W. Schoener wrote a thought-provoking book chapter describing ecological communities along five organismal and five environmental axes. It was thought-provoking in the sense that Schoener attempted to unify community ecology using a minimal set of variables at a time when ecologists were doubtful of any unifying principle in community ecology. After three decades of Schoener's chapter, community ecologists are still divided about whether there could be a general theory of community. . . . Mark Vellend elegantly attempts to bridge this divide by introducing the theory of high-level processes in ecological communities in his Princeton Population Monograph entitled The Theory of Ecological Communities."---Madhav P. Thakur, Trends in Ecology and Evolution "Vellend (biology, Univ. de Sherbrooke, Canada) provides a useful historical account of the wide variety of methods used in the field to lay the foundation for his proposed resolution of the resulting 'mess.' The book is well written, profusely referenced, and a worthy addition to the distinguished 'Monographs in Population Biology' series from Princeton University Press." "Vellend does a tremendous job, and accomplishes for the field of community ecology what few have attempted, and even fewer, if any, have achieved. . . . With its overall plain language and clear prose, his book is excellent material for pre- and postgraduate students."---Lars Götzenberger and Jan Lepš, Conservation Biology "This is a very useful book for students and researchers."---Kevin S. McCann, Quarterly Review of Biology "This is a much-needed synthesis on the key processes shaping ecological communities. Vellend puts his theoretical framework in historical context, presents testable hypotheses derived from the theory, and evaluates them in an extensive review of the empirical literature. Vellend's framework and synthesis will help community ecologists make significant progress in our understanding of how nature works."-Diego P. Vázquez, Argentine Institute for Dryland Research and National University of Cuyo "Many people have suggested that community ecology is a morass of unique cases. Vellend's book a