LEADER 04678nam 2200817Ia 450 001 9910456857303321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-691-09069-6 010 $a1-282-47311-5 010 $a1-282-93590-9 010 $a9786612473111 010 $a9786612935909 010 $a1-4008-3168-7 010 $a0-691-09070-X 024 7 $a10.1515/9781400831685 035 $a(CKB)2550000000007563 035 $a(EBL)483581 035 $a(OCoLC)680017768 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000365577 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11290363 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000365577 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10402814 035 $a(PQKB)11285482 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC483581 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse36661 035 $a(DE-B1597)446883 035 $a(OCoLC)979835226 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781400831685 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC4968606 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL483581 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10359226 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL293590 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL4968606 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL247311 035 $a(OCoLC)1027140489 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000007563 100 $a20090730d2010 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur|n|---||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aScale, heterogeneity, and the structure and diversity of ecological communities$b[electronic resource] /$fMark E. Ritchie 205 $aCourse Book 210 $aPrinceton $cPrinceton University Press$dc2010 215 $a1 online resource (243 p.) 225 1 $aMonographs in population biology 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $t Frontmatter -- $tContents -- $tAcknowledgments -- $tChapter One. Community Ecology Lives -- $tChapter Two. The Geometry of Heterogeneity -- $tChapter Three. Scaling Relationships for the Consumption of Resources -- $tChapter Four. Food, Resources, and Scale-Dependent Niches -- $tChapter Five. Size Structure in Ecological Guilds -- $tChapter Six. Heterogeneity and Patterns of Species Diversity -- $tChapter Seven. Biodiversity Conservation in Fractal Landscapes -- $tChapter Eight. Testing the Model -- $tChapter Nine. Perspectives, Caveats, and Conclusions -- $tAppendix: Summary of Model Parameters -- $tReferences -- $tIndex 330 $aUnderstanding and predicting species diversity in ecological communities is one of the great challenges in community ecology. Popular recent theory contends that the traits of species are "neutral" or unimportant to coexistence, yet abundant experimental evidence suggests that multiple species are able to coexist on the same limiting resource precisely because they differ in key traits, such as body size, diet, and resource demand. This book presents a new theory of coexistence that incorporates two important aspects of biodiversity in nature--scale and spatial variation in the supply of limiting resources. Introducing an innovative model that uses fractal geometry to describe the complex physical structure of nature, Mark Ritchie shows how species traits, particularly body size, lead to spatial patterns of resource use that allow species to coexist. He explains how this criterion for coexistence can be converted into a "rule" for how many species can be "packed" into an environment given the supply of resources and their spatial variability. He then demonstrates how this rule can be used to predict a range of patterns in ecological communities, such as body-size distributions, species-abundance distributions, and species-area relations. Ritchie illustrates how the predictions closely match data from many real communities, including those of mammalian herbivores, grasshoppers, dung beetles, and birds. This book offers a compelling alternative to "neutral" theory in community ecology, one that helps us better understand patterns of biodiversity across the Earth. 410 0$aMonographs in population biology. 606 $aEcological heterogeneity 606 $aBiodiversity 606 $aBiotic communities 606 $aAnimal population density 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aEcological heterogeneity. 615 0$aBiodiversity. 615 0$aBiotic communities. 615 0$aAnimal population density. 676 $a577 686 $aWI 2100$2rvk 700 $aRitchie$b Mark E.$f1960-$01046318 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910456857303321 996 $aScale, heterogeneity, and the structure and diversity of ecological communities$92473136 997 $aUNINA