Ecological Niches: Linking Classical and Contemporary Approaches

by Jonathan M. Chase, Mathew A. Leibold

Why do species live where they live? What determines the abundance and diversity of species in a given area? What role do species play in the functioning of entire ecosystems? All of these questions share a single core concept—the ecological niche. Although the niche concept has fallen into disfavor among ecologists in recent years, Jonathan M. Chase and Mathew A. Leibold argue that the niche is an ideal tool with which to unify disparate research and theoretical approaches in contemporary ecology.

Chase and Leibold define the niche as including both what an organism needs from its environment and how that organism's activities shape its environment. Drawing on the theory of consumer-resource interactions, as well as its graphical analysis, they develop a framework for understanding niches that is flexible enough to include a variety of small- and large-scale processes, from resource competition, predation, and stress to community structure, biodiversity, and ecosystem function. Chase and Leibold's synthetic approach will interest ecologists from a wide range of subdisciplines.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2003

Reviews

[Nicole R · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're looking for a reference book on ecological niches, go somewhere else. This books was extremely dry with complicated sentence structure that is not appreciated when I have to learn math - I don't want to have to dissect English grammar and mathematical equations all in the same book.

More aggravating than that is some of their figures are mislabeled which led to lots of confusion on my part when trying to relearn the Lotka-Volterra models. I eventually had to go look other places anyway.

And, probably more frustrating than all of that is that the authors had a tendency to reference a figure that was on the next page! It's a small think but important for layout so that I'm not constantly flipping back and forth between pages.

[Capri]

there was stats and calc in here i jut wanted to read about bird and moss tbh :/