Adaptive Herbivore Ecology: From Resources to Populations in Variable Environments (Cambridge Studies in Ecology)
Cambridge University Press, 6/27/2002
EAN 9780521810616, ISBN10: 0521810612
Hardcover, 392 pages, 23.7 x 16.2 x 2.6 cm
Language: English
The adaptation of herbivore behaviour to seasonal and locational variations in vegetation quantity and quality is inadequately modelled by conventional methods. Norman Owen-Smith innovatively links the principles of adaptive behaviour to their consequences for population dynamics and community ecology, through the application of a metaphysiological modelling approach. The main focus is on large mammalian herbivores occupying seasonally variable environments such as those characterised by African savannahs, but applications to temperate zone ungulates are also included. Issues of habitat suitability, species coexistence, and population stability or instability are similarly investigated. The modelling approach accommodates various sources of environmental variability, in space and time, in a simple conceptual way and has the potential to be applied to other consumer-resource systems. This text highlights the crucial importance of adaptive consumer responses to environmental variability and is aimed particularly at academic researchers and graduate students in the field of ecology.
Acknowledgements
Acronym and symbol conventions
1. Conceptual origins
variability in time and space
2. Consumer-resource models
theory and formulation
3. Resource abundance
intake response and time frames
4. Resource distribution
patch scales and depletion
5. Resource quality
nutritional gain and diet choice
6. Resource constraints
physiological capacities and costs
7. Resource allocation
growth, storage and reproduction
8. Resource production
regeneration and attrition
9. Resource competition
exploitation and density dependence
10. Resource-dependent mortality
nutrition, predation and demography
11. Habitat suitability
resource components and stocking densities
12. Resource partitioning
competition and coexistence
13. Population dynamics
resource basis for instability
14. An adaptive resource ecology
foundation and prospects
References
Index.