THE ECOLOGICAL VIEW OF POPULATION DYNAMICS

We should ask the question of what generalities are available from the Microecological Idiosyncratic Paradigm compared to the Macroevolutionary Nomothetic Paradigm. I am not equipped to make this comparison objectively because I have stated my views clearly enough in this book. But to foster debate, I would like to offer the following arguments based on population dynamics studies on insect herbivores of the longer kind, 5 years or more, or at least five generations. I have compiled a representative set of examples, with 62 species included, covering a broad spectrum of taxa (Table 10.1). This is certainly not an exhaustive list but is derived largely from several sources that have reviewed an aspect of insect herbivore population dynamics (e.g. Dempster 1983; Berryman 1988, 1999; Myers 1988; Watt et al. 1990; the papers edited by Liebhold and Kamata 2000) plus reprints in my own collection. Forest-dwelling species are well represented, reflecting what is probably a real bias in the literature because forest habitats are relatively stable with even individual trees persisting through a long study, disturbance is minor, foliage feeders and gallers are relatively easy to sample, and only rarely is the resource base – the trees – destroyed by the feeding (cf. Liebhold and Kamata 2000). The studies represent many different approaches in terms of sampling methods, surveys, records of damage, plot studies, and landscape views, observational and experimental.