Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-sh8wx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T12:54:45.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Aim and Structure of Ecological Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Marcel Weber
Marcel Weber*
Affiliation:
Zentrale Einrichtung für Wissenschaftstheorie und Wissenschaftsethik, Universität Hannover
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I present an attempt at an explication of the ecological theory of interspecific competition, including its explanatory role in community ecology and evolutionary biology. The account given is based on the idea that law-like statements play an important role in scientific theories of this kind. I suggest that the principle of competitive exclusion is such a law, and that it is evolutionary invariant. The principle's empirical status is defended and implications for the ongoing debates on the existence of biological laws are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 71 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to the author, Universität Hannover, ZEWW, Oeltzenstraße 9, 30169 Hannover, Germany.

‡

Most of this research was done at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science and the University of Minnesota Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, both of which kindly provided a pleasant and stimulating environment. I especially wish to thank John Beatty, Ronald Giere, Sara Tjossem, and Kenneth Waters for exciting discussions and for critically reading drafts of this paper. I am also indebted to Eric Oberheim and the unknown referees for helpful suggestions. This study was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

References

Abrams, Peter (1983), “The Theory of Limiting Similarity”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 14: 359–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beatty, John (1995), “The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis”, in Wolters, Gereon and Lennox, James G. (eds.), Concepts, Theories, and Rationality in the Biological Sciences. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 45–81.Google Scholar
Brandon, Robert N. (1998), “Does Biology Have Laws? The Experimental Evidence”, Philosophy of Science 64 (Proceedings): S444-S457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy (1983), How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connell, Joseph H. (1978), “Diversity in Tropical Rainforests and Coral Reefs”, Science 199: 1302–1310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connell, Joseph H. (1983), “On the Prevalence and Relative Importance of Interspecific Competition: Evidence From Field Experiments”, American Naturalist 122: 661–696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Gregory (1996), “Theoretical Modeling and Biological Laws”, Philosophy of Science 63 (Proceedings): S28-S35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, Jared M. (1975), “Assembly of Species Communities”, in Martin L. Cody and Jared M. Diamond (eds.), Ecology and Evolution of Communities. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 342–444.Google Scholar
Diamond, Jared M. and Case, Ted J. (1986), Community Ecology. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald N. (1995), “The Skeptikal Perspective: Science without Laws of Nature”, in Weinert, Friedel (ed.), Laws of Nature. Essays on the Philosophical, Scientific and Historical Dimensions. Berlin: de Gruyter, 120–138.Google Scholar
Grant, Peter R. (1986), Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. (1988), “Provisos: A Problem Concerning the Inferential Function of Scientific Theories”, in Grünbaum, Adolf and Salmon, Wesley C. (eds.), The Limitations of Deductivism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 19–36.Google Scholar
Huston, Michael A. (1979), “A General Hypothesis of Species Diversity”, American Naturalist 113: 81–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, George E. (1957), “Concluding Remarks”, Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 22: 415–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, George E. (1961), “The Paradox of the Plankton”, American Naturalist 93: 145–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, George E. (1978), An Introduction to Population Ecology. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Kingsland, Sharon E. (1985), Modeling Nature: Episodes in the History of Population Ecology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip and Salmon, Wesley C. (1987), “Van Fraassen on Explanation”, Journal of Philosophy LXXXIV: 315–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lack, David L. (1947), Darwin's Finches. An Essay on the General Biological Theory of Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lakatos, Imre (1970), “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes”, in Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 91–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubchenco, Jane (1978), “Plant Species Diversity in a Marine Intertidal Community: Importance of Herbivore Food Preference and Algal Competitive Abilities”, American Naturalist 112: 23–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacArthur, Robert H. (1958), “Population Ecology of Some Warblers of Northeastern Coniferous Forests”, Ecology 39: 599–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacArthur, Robert H. (1972), Geographical Ecology. Patterns in the Distribution of Species. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
MacArthur, Robert H. and Levins, Richard (1967), “The Limiting Similarity, Convergence and Divergence of Coexisting Species”, American Naturalist 101: 377–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, Robert M. (1973), Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Maynard Smith, John and Szathmáry, Eörs (1995), The Major Transitions in Evolution. Oxford: Freeman.Google Scholar
Mayr, Ernst (1942), Systematics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Mikkelson, Gregory M. (1996), “Stretched Lines, Averted Leaps, and Excluded Competition: A Theory of Scientific Counterfactuals”, Philosophy of Science 63 (Proceedings): S194-S201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Robert H. (1976), “Tautology in Evolution and Ecology”, American Naturalist 110: 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratcliffe, Laurence and Boag, Peter T. (1982), Introduction to the reissue of Lack's Darwin's Finches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sarkar, Sahotra (1996), “Ecological Theory and Anuran Declines”, BioScience 46: 199–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schluter, Dolph (1996), “Ecological Causes of Adaptive Radiation”, American Naturalist 148: S40–S64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoener, Thomas W. (1983), “Field Experiments on Interspecific Competition”, American Naturalist 122: 240–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrader-Frechette, Kristin and McCoy, Earl D. (1994), “Applied Ecology and the Logic of Case Studies”, Philosophy of Science 61: 228–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slobodkin, Lawrence B. (1961), Growth and Regulation of Animal Populations. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott (1984), The Nature of Selection. Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott (1998), “Two Outbreaks of Lawlessness in Recent Philosophy of Biology”, Philosophy of Science 64 (Proceedings): S458-S467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilman, David (1977), “Resource Competition Between Planktonic Algae: An Experimental and Theoretical Approach”, Ecology 58: 338–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilman, David (1982), Resource Competition and Community Structure. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
van Fraassen, Bas C. (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. (1989), Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waters, C. Kenneth (1990), “The Conceptual Basis for a Nonequilibrium Theory of Succession”, Trends in Ecology and Evolution 5: 123Google Scholar
Waters, C. Kenneth (1998), “Causal Regularities in the Biological World of Contingent Distributions”, Biology and Philosophy 13: 5–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yodzis, Peter (1986), “Competition, Mortality and Community Structure”, in Diamond and Case 1986, 480–481.Google Scholar