Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Playing with loaded dice
- 2 Population-based models of community assembly
- 3 Trait-based community ecology
- 4 Modeling trait-based environmental filters: Bayesian statistics, information theory and the Maximum Entropy Formalism
- 5 Community dynamics, natural selection and the origin of community-aggregated traits
- 6 Community assembly during a Mediterranean succession
- 7 The statistical mechanics of species abundance distributions
- 8 Epilogue: traits are not enough
- References
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Playing with loaded dice
- 2 Population-based models of community assembly
- 3 Trait-based community ecology
- 4 Modeling trait-based environmental filters: Bayesian statistics, information theory and the Maximum Entropy Formalism
- 5 Community dynamics, natural selection and the origin of community-aggregated traits
- 6 Community assembly during a Mediterranean succession
- 7 The statistical mechanics of species abundance distributions
- 8 Epilogue: traits are not enough
- References
- Index
Summary
“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me.”
Banquo, from Shakespeare's MacbethPerhaps this book is my attempt to hold a conversation with Banquo? He would be a fierce critic of the scientific stature of plant ecology, judging from this quote, and I doubt that I could get him to speak at all. He demands, not only predictive ability, but a very fine-grained level of predictive ability. In this book I attempt to develop a predictive theory of plant community assembly. By “predictive” I mean that the theory should be able to quantitatively tell us the relative abundance of each species in the local community under natural field conditions and based on information that can be collected in practice. By “theory” I mean a formal method of both performing such predictions and also of being able logically to deduce why such predictions actually hold in nature based on known biological processes – in this case, the process of natural selection.
I warn you at the outset that the predictive theory presented in this book would not satisfy Banquo even if it were to succeed. Such fine-scale predictive ability – being able to “say which grain will grow and which will not” – is likely forever beyond our grasp. The reason for this is explained in Chapter 2. We must remain forever mute before Banquo.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- From Plant Traits to Vegetation StructureChance and Selection in the Assembly of Ecological Communities, pp. ix - xiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009